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THE STORY OF HARVARD

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Mollis H»ll tmd Stoughton HaU. FmnlitpHxe

THE STORY OF
HARVARD

ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

VERNON HOWE BAILEY

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• • • • 4

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

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Published, September, 1913
Reprinted, December, 1913

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8. J. Paskhill a Co., Bostoh, U.S.A.

PREFACE

From Benjamin Peirce's History of Harvard and
from President Quincy's History of Harvard I have
drawn much of the material for the earlier chapters
of this book. For that contained in later chapters
I acknowledge indebtedness particularly to Jo*
siah Quincy's Figures of the Pasty Dr. A. P. Pea-
body's Harvard Reminiscences j Harvard Memorial
BiographieSy and Mn' William Roscoe Thayer's ad-
mirable History and Customs of Harvard University.
The selections from J. R. Lowell's works are used by
permission of, and by special arrangement with,
Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized pub-
lishers of his works. Acknowledgment is also due
to Harper and Brothers for extracts from Letters
of James Russell Lowell^ edited by Charles Eliot
Norton, and to Little, Brown, and Company for
the extracts from Francis Parkman's letters and
from Josiah Quincy's Figures of the Past.

A. S. P.

CUBBERLEY UBRARY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. Past and Present

II. The Beginning and the First President

III. Harvard in the Seventeenth Century

IV. Leverett and Wadsworth
V. Before the Revolution .

VI. The Revolution: Harvard in Exile

VII. The Period of Readjustment .

VIII. The Beginning of the Modern Era

IX. Harvard under Quincy

X. Ante - Bellum Days ....

XI. Harvard in the War ....

XII. President Eliot's Administration .

XIII. Undergraduate Activities

XIV. Freshman and Senior

PAGE
I

97
112

128

147
163

197
209

227

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HoUis Hall and Stoughton Hall . . Frontispiece

f ACXNG PAGE

The Johnston West Gate 4

Gore Hall 18

Germanic Museum 34

Harvard Hall 54

The Union 74

Massachusetts Hall 94

University Hall no

Hoi worthy Hall 132

Divinity Hall 148

Apple ton Chapel 164

Memorial Hall 178

The Lampoon Office and the " Gold Coast " .210

The Weld Boat House 218

The Stadium 224

The Yard on Class Day , 246

THE

STORY OF HARVARD

CHAPTER I

PAST AND PRESENT

LET US conceive of a Harvard graduate of
twenty years ago, now revisiting his college
for the first time, with no knowledge of the changes
which it has undergone since his day. What would
be his impressions? He would probably feel at
first as if he were seeing a few old landmarks em-
bedded in a new setting. The old Cambridge and
the old Boston are transformed. Conveyed through
a tunnel from Boston Common to Harvard Square
in eight minutes, the returning patriarch emerges
upon a college yard that he hardly knows. The
wooden fence has disappeared; a high iron fence
and handsome brick gateways have replaced that
simple barrier, and exact of him as he enters a sense
of uneasy formality. He is cheered by the sight
of Grays and Boylston, the homely old familiars of

1 rc'iCD^ '

THE STORY OF HARVARD

his youth, standing shoulder to shoulder in front
of him; and when he passes them he finds the build-
ings of the old quadrangle unchanged. But the
quadrangle itself, with its elms all lopped to the
shape of candelabra and its meager young red oaks,
has a bare aspect that chills his spirits.

The friendly pump, souvenir of more primitive
days, has disappeared from in front of HoUis. A
glimpse through an open window in Holworthy
entices him; he climbs the stairs to the room that
he used to occupy. The senior who welcomes him
is hospitable and interested; the graduate is im-
pressed by the luxury and comfort of the quarters.
The pictures and the furniture suggest to him that
the aesthetic sense of the undergraduate is more
discriminating now than it used to be. The variety
of medals and " shingles " upon the walls convinces
him that the social life is more varied. The shower-
bath that has been installed in what was once the
" coal closet " informs him that a crude way of
living is no longer tolerated. Unwilling to pay
homage to the present at the expense of the past,
he remembers with a manly pride the tin hat tub
which it was his custom to drag from under the
bed every morning. The room may have been of
a frosty temperature, the water may have been icy

PAST AND PRESENT

cold; but the graduate is of the opinion that to
squat shivering in the hat tub was a tonic for
virility such as the young hedonist who steams and
streams in his warm shower can never know.

Looking out of the window, he laments the fact
that the low wire fences to protect the grass plots
have been removed. In his day they aflForded
pleasant opportunities for practise in walking the
tight-wire. The graduate himself acquired pro-
ficiency in that art; he tells the polite senior how
once he made a wager that he could strip himself
naked on the wire and then dress again without
touching foot to the ground, and how, having
chosen an early morning hour that would not expose
him to public scandal, he successfully performed
the feat. Something in the senior's polite manner of
receiving this anecdote causes him to feel that
Harvard men nowadays would regard such diver-
sions as fit only to be practised at a fresh-water
college.

The graduate fears that the courteous and hos-
pitable senior is getting bored, and so he takes his
departure. If the quadrangle has altered in minor
ways, the yard to the east of the quadrangle has
altered a great deal. Along Quincy Street, flank-
ing Sever on either side, is a series of new buildings.

THE STORY OF HARVARD

The graduate looks in vain for Shaler's picturesque
old house — just as, alas, he looks in vain for pictur-
esque old Shaler. He looks in vain for the Presi-
dent's ugly old house; he sees instead a handsome
new mansion. He looks in vain for Gore Hall, the
library; it has been torn down, to give place to a
much larger and finer library under another name.
The graduate thinks it is right and fitting thus to
honor the memory of the young Harvard man for
whom the building is given; but he also thinks
that it is rather rough on old Christopher Gore,
who by his bequest of a hundred thousand dollars
seventy years ago had become Harvard's most
munificent benefactor. However, the senior has
informed the graduate that Christopher Gore is to
be compensated by having one of the new fresh-
man dormitories named after him.

" Freshman dormitories " — that is a new idea
to the graduate. The senior who has outlined the
scheme to him has expressed the skepticism to be
expected of a conservative senior. He has ad-
mitted, however, that since it is one of President
Lowell's pet ideas, it may turn out all right; he
confesses that President Lowell has so far " made
good." (An expression, by the way, that annoys
the graduate exceedingly.) His explanation of the

„l^rt^

The Johnston West Gate

PAST AND PRESENT

proposed scheme has interested the graduate; ap-
parently there are to be three or four dormitories
somewhere down by the river in which all freshmen
are to be segregated; the rich and the poor are to
live together, eat together, play together — if not
spontaneously, why then by compulsion. The
graduate thinks that in his day no such artificial
spurs to democratic conduct were required, but he
concedes, after a visit to the Gold Coast, that it may
be diflFerent now.

The Gold Coast he finds to be a section of Mount
Auburn Street that has of late years been built up
with luxurious and high-priced dormitories. By a
fortunate chance, the class baby of the graduate's
class, who lives in Claverly Hall, emerges just as
he is passing that building. So the class baby takes
the elderly gentleman — who is a friend of his as
well as of his father's — in charge, pilots him on a
tour of these habitations of the rich, shows him the
swimming-tanks, the squash courts, offers him tea,
and has in several of the most civilized young per-
sons imaginable to meet him.

When the graduate expresses a desire to see some
of the athletic activities, he is escorted to Soldier's
Field. There the huge Stadium, looming in the
midst of spacious playing-grounds, excites his

THE STORY OF HARVARD

wonder. Within its horse-shoe, the Varsity foot-
ball squad is practising; outside, on various grid-
irons, the members of scrub and class elevens are
trampling about, busily grinding one another into
the earth. With pleasure and surprise the graduate
notes that one of these filthy-faced participants is
the senior who had entertained him in Holworthy.
The graduate feels that young men who have warm
shower-baths in their rooms are likely to be partic-
ularly benefited if they eat their peck of dirt while
still young. He regrets that the class baby does not
play football. The graduate invites him and two
of his friends to dine — wondering, as he does so,
whether he ought to offer them champagne. He de-
cides hastily that it will be expected, when the
class baby in accepting the invitation amends it by
suggesting that they go after dinner to see a show,
and says that he will run them all in to Boston in
his motor.

After appointing the rendezvous, the graduate
strolls off alone to revisit the scenes for which he
has a particular affection. He is pleased to find
that the Gymnasium has grown to more than
double its former size. With what lies behind it he
is profoundly impressed, but his emotions are not
wholly those of pleasure. Holmes Field and Jarvis

PAST AND PRESENT

Field, those arenas of athletic triumph or defeat,
in football, base-ball, tennis and track, have been
so built upon as to be unrecognizable. No vestige
of the wooden bleachers whence rose the cheers of
thousands now remains. Old John the Orangeman
and his donkey have passed on — farther than from
Holmes to Soldier's Field. The ancient silk hat
garnished with a crimson bandage no longer goes
nodding in front of the stands; no more is the
amiable simian countenance turned upward to the
customer; none of the present college generations
have heard the mumbled greeting — "Aye, frind;
yis, frind."

The graduate turns aside and walks along quiet
streets on which professors live in their modest
houses. They offer a singular contrast to the arid
splendors of the Gold Coast; with their trees and
shrubbery they recall the Cambridge that he knew.
But on the little side streets, inhabited no doubt by
instructors and tutors and assistants, the houses
seem small and dingy; the graduate regrets the
obvious disparity in the way of living imposed on
some officers of the college and that enjoyed by
some of the undergraduates. For at the under-
graduate time of life dignity in externals is especially
impressive; the young man accustomed to luxury

THE STORY OF HARVARD

is not likely to detect worth in shabbiness. The
freshman whose boots are blacked and whose fire
is lighted before he gets out of bed will probably be
more attentive to a lecturer who wears dove-colored
spats and a fancy waistcoat than to one whose
trousers show horizontal creases and whose coat
droops from the shoulders. It is the opinion of the
graduate that if the pay of all the lesser officers of
the university could be doubled or tripled, there
would be a higher average of scholarship along the
Gold Coast than now exists, and that fewer of
those who have put into its ports would be pre-
maturely banished to cruise the high seas. But the
graduate's theory is not likely to be tested; possibly
the institution of freshman dormitories will pro-
duce one of the results that he would like to see —
not by improving the condition of the minor officers
of the college, but by reducing the utterly false
notions of personal dignity that are now entertained
by many sons of multimillionaires.

Engaged' in these reflections, the graduate" finds
that he has reached that sequestered nook of Har-
vard University in which the divinity students are
congregated. The Divinity School, with its little
chapel and dormitory and lecture hall, is now a
quaintly unimportant corner of the university —

PAST AND PRESENT

so at least the graduate thinks when he remembers
that Harvard College was originally and primarily
a divinity school.

So at least he thinks until he spies beyond, in
what used to be a section of Norton's Woods, a very
beautiful, very large, very imposing and obviously
ecclesiastical building — Norman-Gothic, of gray
stone, with a lofty central tower. To a passing post-
man he appeals for information. " The Andover
Theological School," says the postman. " Now run
in connection with the Harvard Divinity School."

An interesting reversion, thinks the graduate —
for in 1808, the Calvinists, outraged by the growth
of Unitarianism at Harvard, forsook Cambridge
and established their own theological school at An-
dover. Just one hundred years later, back they
come and rear this noble fane at Harvard's doors —
not in mocking triumph, but lending their strength
and their aid to what seems a humble and shrunken
little school of divinity.

As the graduate has now had enough of sight-see-
ing, he sits down on the steps of Divinity Chapel
and lets his mind dwell upon the early days of the
college. These acres were then a jungle of whortle-
berry bushes. Much of Cambridge, all of what is
now Cambridgeport, was a treeless, marshy waste.

THE STORY OF HARVARD

The undergraduates over whom Dunster and
then Chauncy presided were very young. They
entered college at the age of twelve or thirteen —
already devoted, most of them, to the ministry.
Theology was the subject of universal interest to
the community; the theologians were the important
and influential persons.

The graduate musing on the steps of Divinity
finds it hard to visualize and comprehend the people
of those days. Their apparent lack of human senti-
ment, their callousness to affection, their insensibility
to suffering and tragedy seem to him characteristic
of the Chinese rather than the Anglo-Saxon race.
Even in the households which were as happy as
Calvinistic households could well be, the visitations
of death appear scarcely to have disturbed the tran-
quillity of those who survived. The readiness of
persons and families to adapt themselves to bereave-
ment and make the best of it strikes the tender-
hearted graduate as amazing. He remembers that
the conduct of Robert Harvard, father of John, in
waiting a year and a half after the death of his
first wife before contracting a second marriage was
noted as exceptionaL Robert Harvard's widow,
John Harvard's mother, was less patient; she
married John Elletson five months after Robert

PAST AND PRESENT

Harvard died; she married Richard Yearwood ten
months after Elletson's death. John Harvard's
widow had been his widow hardly a year when she
married Thomas Allen. The graduate, who has
dipped somewhat into diaries and letters of the
time, has been struck by the fact that the loss
of children seemed to cause their parents only a
passing pang. The frequent mortality in Cotton
Mather's offspring failed to detach that self-cen-
tered fanatic for any considerable interval from
the contemplation of his own spiritual experiences.
Even so late as the middle of the eighteenth century,
President Stiles of Yale hardly paused from his
nightly astronomical observations to be present at
the death of his infant son; his record of that event
^ would indicate that he regarded it as one of the
minor incidents of life.

Such sternness of soul was perhaps required of
the men who were to build up New England. And
though among the early presidents of Harvard were
many gentler spirits, the atmosphere of the time was
not favorable to progress in the humanities. Disci-
pline was severe without being just, duty was narrowly
defined, individualism was repressed. Harvard Col-
lege had its beginning in a period of reaction towards
mediaevalism in thought and monasticism in conduct.

THE STORY OF HARVARD

Her ideals of education were utterly divorced from
those which had flowered in the Elizabethan age.
So long as they prevailed, no great thinker or writer
or poet could issue from her walls. Not until she
had freed herself from the tyranny of the theocracy
and embraced with the ardor of emancipated youth
the liberal doctrines of the Revolution did she be-
gin to feel and to reveal her powers. From having
been, as it were, the devout watcher by the corpse
of learning, tending the lights at head and feet,
she has come forth to find herself in the presence
of the living; instead of guarding dry bones and
dust, she is quickening sensibility, inspiring senti-
ment, and stirring imagination.

The graduate has completed his meditations;
he rises from the steps of Divinity and goes to meet
the class baby and his friends.

CHAPTER II

THE BEGINNING AND THE FIRST PRESIDENT

IN 1636 the Massachusetts Bay settlement ex-
tended for about thirty miles along the seacoast
and less than twenty miles inland. West and north
and south of thi^ small area stretched a wilderness,
inhabited by hostile Indians. The people of the
settlement were few in number and scattered.
There were perhaps five thousand families. They
had the Indians to fight or to pacify, a living to get
from the soil, houses to build, and forests to clear.
With all their toil and activity, with all the need
for co-operation in facing their problems and perils,
and in spite of the fact that they had exiled them-
selves in a desire for perfect religious freedom,
they found both time and inclination to engage in
theological controversy with one another and to
view one another with bitterness and suspicion.
Infant baptism and the Antinomian theory were
prolific causes of strife and dissension. Theology
constituted their only intellectual interest; zealots

THE STORY OF HARVARD

and fanatics as they were, there was no unanimity
in their non-conformity.

But by one sentiment they were united — the love
of learning. Long before there was any promise of
prosperity, while they were still struggling in such
poverty as few other pioneers have ever known,
they were contributing freely from their scanty re-
sources to keep alive the institution which remains
to-day the first and greatest creation of the Puri-
tans.

In the autumn of 1636, six years after the first
settlement of Boston, the General Court of Massa-
chusetts Bay Colony voted to grant four hundred
pounds for the founding of a public " school or
college." Two hundred pounds was to be paid the
next year, and the remainder of the amount when
the building was finished. This was the first occa-
sion, it is said, on which a community through its
representatives voted a sum of money to establish
an institution of learning. Twelve of the principal
magistrates and ministers of the colony, among them
Governor Winthrop and Deputy Governor Dudley,
were appointed to carry through the project.

They decided that the college should be at New-

THE BEGINNING AND FIRST PRESIDENT

towne — "a place very pleasant and accommodate."
In 1638, the year of the opening of the college, the
name of this place was changed to Cambridge,
many of the leading men of the colony being grad-
uates of the old English university. Thus, before the
college itself had received a name, it had given one
to the town.

In 1637, John Harvard, a young non-conformist
minister who had graduated two years earlier at
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, came over and
settled in Charlestown. His life there was short;
he died of consumption the next year. Apparently
the plans for the college had awakened his interest
and enthusiasm, for he left it half his estate —
779 pounds, seventeen shillings and twopence —
and also his library of 320 volumes. We may justly
estimate the importance of this bequest if we con-
sider that eight hundred pounds in those days
would be equivalent in value to about thirty thou-
sand dollars now.

John Harvard's unexpected and munificent be-
quest stimulated others to give freely. A list of
some of the contributions is rather touching; it
includes such items as a number of sheep, a quantity
of cotton cloth worth nine shillings, a pewter flagon
worth ten shillings, a fruit dish, a sugar spoon, a

THE STORY OF HARVARD

" silver-tipt " jug, one " great salt," and one small
** trencher-salt."

It was John Harvard's bequest that made the
establishment of the college secure, and it was a
just appreciation of this fact that led the founders to
perpetuate his name. In March, 1639, it was voted
that the college should henceforth be known as
Harvard College.

Although the exact site of the original college
building is more or less uncertain, it was probably
somewhere within the limits of the present Grays
Hall. The building was primitive and poorly
constructed. On the first floor were the hall, which
was used for religious and literary exercises and for
" commons," and the kitchen and buttery. The
upper floors were given over to chambers; each
chamber had partitioned off in it two or three
studies about six feet square. Some of the cham-
bers were calked and daubed with clay, others were
ceiled with cedar, others were lathed, plastered,
and whitened. The building was clapboarded and
shingled, but was far from weatherproof; the win-
dows were more successful in admitting air than
light, for only a portion of each sash was glazed,
oiled paper being used in the rest. In cold weather
the small studies in the chambers were frigid,

THE BEGINNING AND FIRST PRESIDENT

and the students all resorted with their books to
the hall, where a fire was maintained " at the ex-
pense of those who used it " — which probably
means that those who did not contribute were not
allowed to have places near it. In this room on
cold nights the boys did their studying by the light
of " the public candle."

The pursuit of learning under such conditions
was severe enough; it was rendered almost intoler-
able by the character of the first master or professor.
With all the munificence, devotion, and public spirit
that attended the founding of Harvard College,
its opening was not auspicious. The Rev. Nathaniel
Eaton, appointed in 1637 the executive head, was
utterly unfit for the post — although the General
Court had such a high opinion of his capacities
that they granted him five hundred acres of land
on the condition of his remaining permanently with
the college. He was both dishonest and violent;
with the assistance of his wife, who acted as house-
keeper and stewardess of the college, he cheated
the students, and with his own hands he ill-used
them. Moreover, he did not confine his cruel prac-
tises to undergraduates alone. He quarreled with
his usher, Nathaniel Briscoe, got two men to hold
him, and then beat him over the head and shoulders

THE STORY OF HARVARD

with a club. Briscoe, thinking that he was to be
murdered, began to pray, whereupon Eaton gave
him some extra blows for taking the name of God in
vain. The General Court, which had hitherto
thought so highly of the master, dismissed him from
office, fined him sixty-six pounds, and ordered him
to pay Briscoe thirty pounds. An examination into
the complaints made by the students followed;
Eaton's wife made an abject and curious con-
fession, admitting, among other things, that she
had let the negro servitor sleep in John Wilson's
bed. For this and other offenses she was severely
censured; and then she and her husband, having
been excommunicated by the church, took their
departure from the colony. They went to Vir-
ginia and then to England, where Eaton showed
no improvement in either character or temper.
After the restoration of Charles II, he conformed to
the Church of England, obtained a living,* and pro-
ceeded to persecute his former brethren with zeal
and vindictiveness. In spite of his time-serving
propensity he did not prosper; he was finally com-
mitted to prison for debt, and there ended his
days.

This lamentable conduct on the part of the first
executive did not discourage faith in the new insti-

THE BEGINNING AND FIRST PRESIDENT

tution. People continued to make gifts to it, and
in 1640 the General Court granted the college the
revenue of the ferry between Charlestown and Bos-
ton, amounting to about sixty pounds a year. The
first printing-press north of Mexico, and for many
years the only one in British America, was set up
at the college; the first work from the American
press was the " Freeman's Oath," issued in 1639.
No one was appointed to succeed Eaton until
^ugust 27, 1640, when the Rev. Henry Dunster,
who had recently arrived from England, was elected
president under that title. He had come over from
Lancashire at the age of thirty-six with his wife and
children to escape persecution for non-conformity.
There is much that is wistful and appealing in the
life of the young, light-haired first president. Ar-
dent and enthusiastic, an idealist who knew no com-
promises, generous of nature, tolerant of others but
inflexible towards himself, Henry Dunster was the
truest type of man to govern the destinies of a col-
lege. He impoverished himself and wore himself
out in the service of Harvard. Poor man though
he was, he gave the college a hundred acres of
land and contributed the greater part of the funds
for building a house for the president; he secured
liberal donations, besought the General Court for

THE STORY OF HARVARD

appropriations for improvements, and was himself
teacher, preacher, and administrator. His salary
was small and variable. In a letter to Governor
Winthrop in 1643 he referred with resignation to
" abatements that I have suffered, from 60 pounds
to 50 pounds, from 50 pounds to 45 pounds, and from
45 pounds to 30 pounds, which is now my rent from
the ferry. I was and am willing, considering the
poverty of the country, to descend to the lowest
step, if there can be nothing comfortably allowed."
Although his own living was so precarious, Dunster
was quite successful in collecting money for the
college; during his term as president, the donations
amounted to at least one thousand pounds, besides
annuities and grants of land.

Unfortunately doubts as to the validity of infant
baptism overtook him and so preyed upon his mind
that at last he felt compelled to give them utter-
ance; in the opinion of the influential persons of the
community, this heresy terminated his usefulness.
Cotton Mather wrote with sanctimonious regret
that " he fell into the briers of Antipaedobaptism."
Another devout person declared that " scruples and
suggestions had been injected into him by Mr.
Dunster's discourses," that he no longer dared
trust himself within reach of their " venom and

THE BEGINNING AND FIRST PRESIDENT

poison," and that it was " not hard to discern that
they came from the Evil One."

So in October, 1654, after fourteen years of un-
selfish and devoted service, Dunster was compelled
to resign from the college. In November he sub-
mitted to the General Court " Considerations "
which might induce them to let him remain a little
longer in the president's house; they have a curious
simplicity and pathos.

" I. The time of the year is unseasonable, being
now very near the shortest day and the depth of
winter.

" 2. The place unto which I go is unknown to me
and my family, and the ways and means of sub-
sistence to one of my talents and parts, or for the
containing or conserving of my goods, or disposing
of my cattle, accustomed to my place of residence.

" 3. The place from which I go hath fire, fuel,
and all provisions for man and beast laid in for the
winter. To remove some things will be to destroy
them; to remove others, as books and household
goods, to damage them greatly. The house I have
builded, upon very damageful conditions to myself,
out of love for the college. . . .

" 4. The persons, all besides myself, are women
and children. . . . My wife is sick, and my youngest

THE STORY OF HARVARD

child entirely so, and hath been for months, so
that we dare not carry him out of doors."

The General Court was sufficiently touched to
let him remain until March — not a much more
seasonable time for moving in those days. The reader
of this homeless and penniless man's appeal may
reflect somewhat ironically upon the luxurious dor-
mitory at Harvard which bears Dunster's name.

The deposed president went to Scituate and be-
came minister of the church there; his financial
condition was still so straitened that the Corpora-
tion of Harvard College, which had recognized
the value of his services even while finding it neces-
sary to ask for his resignation, appealed to the
General Court to settle one hundred pounds on him
to compensate him for losses that he had sustained.
The General Court, however, neither felt under any
obligation to do this nor was disposed to be gener-
ous. Four years after leaving Cambridge, Dunster
died in poverty.

There were nine members of the first class that
graduated from Harvard College — the class of
1642. Most of them became ministers. Benjamin
Woodbridge, the first scholar of the class^ returned
to England and might have been Canon of Windsor
if he had been willing to conform to the Church of

THE BEGINNING AND FIRST PRESIDENT

England, but he would not. John Bulkley, son
of the first minister at Concord, also went to England.
He, too, became a minister, but was ejected from his
parish in 1662. He then took up the practise of
medicine in London — with considerable success.
William Hubbard became minister at Ipswich,
John Wilson at Medfield, and Nathaniel Brewster
on Long Island. Samuel Bellingham and Henry
Saltonstall took degrees in medicine in Europe.
Of Tobias Barnard nothing is recorded.

By far the most interesting and picturesque
member of the class was George Downing — though
he was not a man of whom the college can be proud.
The ministry had no attractions for him; he entered
the English Army and was scout-master general in
Scotland. Afterwards he was in high favor with
Cromwell, but with the Restoration he became a
turncoat, had the merit of betraying several of the
regicides, and was knighted in consequence. For
this he was made a byword in New England; any
man who betrayed his trust was spoken of as " an
arrant George Downing." Samuel Pepys in his
diary, March 12, 1662, wrote:

" This morning we have news that Sir G. Down*-
ing — lik6 a perfidious rogue, though the action is
good and of service to the King, yet he cannot with

THE STORY OF HARVARD

a good conscience do it, — hath taken Okey, Corbet,
and Barkstead at Delft in Holland, and sent them
home in the Blackmore.^^ Five days later, mention-
ing the arrival of the prisoners, Pepys has this
passage: "The captain tells me, the Dutch were a
good while before they could be persuaded to let
them go, they being taken prisoners in their land.
But Sir G. Downing would not be answered so,
though all the world takes notice of him for a most
ungrateful villain for his pains."

Pepys, however, had always a warm feeling for
success; and it was characteristic of him that in
five years he should be writing:

" The new commissioners of the treasury have
chosen Sir G. Downing for their secretary; and I
think in my conscience they have done a great
thing in it; for he is active and a man of business,
and values himself upon having things do well under
his hand; so that I am mightily pleased in their
choice/'

And again: "Met with Sir G. Downing, and
walked with him an hour, talking of business and
how the late war was managed, there being nobody
to take care of it, and he telling, when he was in
Holland, what he offered the King to do if he might
have power, and then, upon the least word, per-

THE BEGINNING AND FIRST PRESIDENT

haps of a woman, to the King, He was contradicted
again, and particularly to the loss of all that we lost
in Guinea. He told me that he had so good spies
that he hath had the keys taken out of De Witt's
pocket when he was abed, and his closet opened and
papers brought to him and left in his hands for an
hour, and carried back and laid in the place again,
and the keys put into his pocket again. He says
he hath always had their most private debates, that
have been but between two or three of the chief
of them, brought to him in an hour after, and an
hour after that hath sent word thereof to the King."
Whether or not Harvard derived any benefit in
England through the influential offices of this ras-
cally earliest graduate does not appear. It is at
least to be remembered to his credit that forty
years after his graduation he contributed a sub-
stantial sum of money to the building of the old Har-
vard Hall; he must have had some feeling of affec-
tion for his needy young Alma Maten

CHAPTER III

HARVARD IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

SEVEN years after its founding, Harvard Col-
lege adopted the seal and coat of arms which it
now bears — three books spread open upon a shield
and displaying the word Veritas. In 1650 the col-
lege became by act of the General Court a corpora-
tion, consisting of a president, five fellows, and a
treasurer; in them all the property of the institu-
tion was to be vested, and by them, under the super-
vision of the overseers, its affairs were to be directed.
This charter of 1650 is still the basis of the legal
existence and organization of the university.

The requirements for admission at this time seem
at first glance to have been severely classical.
" When any scholar is able to understand Tully
or such like classical Latine author extempore,
and m^ke and speake true Latine in verse and prose,
suo ut aiunt Marte^ and decline perfectly the para-
digms of nounes and verbes in the Greek tongue;
Let him then, and not before, be capable of admis-

IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

sion into the College." But although these require-
ments in Latin sound in one way rather formidable,
and although the students were expected to recite
at all times in Latin, the college course was in
most respects very elementary. Its primary aim
was to prepare students for the ministry. Besides
Latin and Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac were
the prescribed languages; logic, ethics, arithmetic,
geometry, physics, metaphysics, politics, and di-
vinity were also prescribed. The young man who
went forth with more than a smattering in all
these subjects was no doubt exceptional. Examina-
tions were held frequently, especially before Com-
mencement. The Commencement exercises, which
from the very beginning were attended by the
governor and all the chief men of the colony, con-
sisted of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew orations, and
of disputations upon theses. In spite of being dedi-
cated to such forbidding displays of scholarship,
Commencement came to be often a time of disorder
and at various periods was made a subject of special
legislation.

Besides the frequent examinations, just before
Commencement, there were held once a month
public declamations in Latin and Greek, and logical
and philosophical disputations. For three weeks

THE STORY OF HARVARD

in June students who had been in the college two
years or more were subjected to a daily, four-hour,
oral examination. During this period, visitors were
made welcome in the classes and given the privilege
of questioning the students. The learned bores of
the colony greatly enjoyed this opportunity of pub-
licly harrying the undergraduates.

In the early days of the college there were no
professors; the president was assisted in imparting
instruction by two or three graduate students,
" bachelors in residence." A bachelor in residence
was called a Sir. Thus, in 1643 Sir Bulkley and
Sir Downing were appointed " for the present help of
the President," and received a salary of four pounds
a year. Bulkley in 1645 went to England and gave
the college an acre of land covering the site of Gore
Hall. Samuel Mather, of the class of 1643, be-
came a Sir and acquired great popularity. " Such
^was the love of all the scholars to him that not only
when he read his last Philosophy Lecture in the Col-
lege Hall they heard him in tears, because of its
being his last, but also when he went away from
the College, they put on the tokens of mourning
in their very garments for it." Mitchell, of the
class of 1647, remained a tutor in the college for
several years. In 1650 he married a young widow

IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

and ordered from the college commons " a supper
on his wedding night." It was he who perceived
that President Dunster's ideas " were from the
Evil One."

Throughout the college year, tasks or duties were
assigned for practically every hour of the day,
and the rules regulating conduct were strict. The
college laws of 1650 forbade the students to use
tobacco " unless permitted by the president with
the consent of parents or guardians, and a good
reason first given by a physician, and then in a
sober and private manner." They also prohibited the
joining of any military band " unless of known
gravity, and of approved, sober, and virtuous conver-
sation."

There were, however, occasional quite shocking
outbreaks on the part of individual students. James
Ward, of the class of 1645, son of a clergyman,
and Joseph Weld, son of another clergyman, bur-
glarized two houses. " Being found out," writes
Governor Winthrop, " they were ordered by the
governors of the College to be there whipped, which
was performed by the president himself — yet
they were about 20 years of age. . . • We had yet
no particular punishment for burglary."

The Rev. Charles Chauncy, an elderly clergy-

THE STORY OF HARVARD

man of Scituate, succeeded President Dunster.
He had nothing of the martyr spirit of his prede-
cessor; he was quite willing to refrain from press-
ing unwelcome views upon people. So far from
sharing Dunster's inconvenient ideas about infant
baptism, he went too enthusiastically to the other
extreme to please the community; " it was his
judgment not only to admit infants to baptism, but
to wash or dip them all over." It was represented
to him that if he continued to disseminate that
doctrine, he could not be made president of Har-
vard; whereupon he cheerfully agreed to desist from
such an unwise contention.

His weakness was of conviction perhaps rather
than of character; at any'rate he seems to have been
an excellent president. His administration was
beset with difficulties, and he struggled with them
manfully and on the whole efficiently. The financial
condition of the college was precarious; the General
Court, to which Chauncy appealed time and again,
was not disposed to make any liberal grants towards
its relief. As had been the case with Dunster,
Chauncy's salary was paid chiefly in transfers of
taxes; he had to collect the taxes himself, and then,
as they were usually paid in Indian corn or other
produce, he had to convert them into cash, usually

IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

losing a considerable part of their value in the
transaction.

The conversion and education of the Indians was
much on the minds of the pious settlers. The press
of Harvard College was kept busy turning out
tracts for their enlightenment. A Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel among them, which had
its headquarters in England, was prevailed upon to
contribute a sum of money for a college building
to be known as the Indian College. This building
was finished in 1665, but the aborigines made very
little use of it. A few Indians were admitted to
Harvard, but only one ever graduated, and he
shortly afterwards died of consumption. The In-
dian College was soon required for other purposes
than those for which it was built.

Both it and the original building — the first
Harvard Hall — were poorly constructed; before
the end of Chauncy's term they had become almost
unfit for occupation. Partly because of this, partly
because of the apathy of the General Court towards
the welfare of the college, the number of students
declined, the total funds of the institution amounted
to only a thousand pounds, and its future was dark.
The venerable president did not lose heart; he
went about trying to awaken interest and enthusiasm.

THE STORY OF HARVARD

His efforts were successful; and soon the different
towns were contributing funds to stay the decline.
The town of Portsmouth was the first to come for-
ward; it pledged sixty pounds a year for seven years.
Other places and people emulated this public spirit,
and eventually the subscriptions which came in
were sufficient for the building of a new Harvard
Hall. But this was not finished until 1682 — ten
years after Chauncy's death.

President Chauncy set his students a good ex-
ample of industry; he rose every morning at four
o'clock and was busily occupied every day until
his death, at the age of eighty-two.

" The fellows of the College once leading this ven-
erable old man to preach a sermon on a winter day,
they, out of affection to him, to discourage him from
so difficult an undertaking, told him, * Sir, you'll cer-
tainly die in the pulpit; ' but he, laying hold on what
they said as if they had offered him the greatest
encouragement in the world, pressed the more vigor-
ously through the snowdrift, and said, ' How glad
should I be if what you say might prove true! ' "

It is pleasant to find that the old gentleman re-
tained to the end certain youthful prejudices as well
as pious enthusiasms; he frequently inveighed from
the pulpit against the enormity of long hair.

IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Upon Chauncy's death in 1672, the Rev. Leonard
Hoar, a graduate of the class of 1650, was chosen
president. Although his administration was brief
and unsuccessful, he deserved a better fate; his
writings show him to have been far more broad-
minded than most of his contemporaries and in
many ways ahead of his time. He wanted " a large,
well-sheltered garden and orchard, for students
addicted to planting; an ergasterium for mechanic
fancies; and a laboratory chemical for those phi-
losophers that by their senses would culture their
understandings. . . . For readings or notions only
are but husky provender." He was endowed with
the rarest of all qualities among the members of
his race and generation — a kindly humor. Thus,
after giving a scapegrace nephew who was a freshman
some excellent advice, he ended his letter as follows:

" Touching the other items about your studies,
either mind them or mend them and follow better,
so we shall be friends and rejoice in each other; but
if you will neither, then, though I am no prophet,
yet I will foretell you the certain issue of all, viz.,
that in a very few years be over, with inconceivable
indignation you will call yourself fool and caitiff, and
then, when it is to no purpose, me, what I now sub-
scribe myself, your faithful friend and loving uncle."

THE STORY OF HARVARD

One of such a temper must have found very
distasteful some of the duties that his position
imposed upon him. Samuel Sewall's Diary gives
an interesting glimpse of college discipline.

"June 15, 1674, Thomas Sargeant was examined
by the Corporation finally. The advice of Mr. Dan-
forth, Mr. Stoughton, Mr. Thacher, Mr. Mather
was taken. This was his sentence:

" That being convicted of speaking blasphemous
words concerning the H. G." — certainly no ir-
reverence was intended in the abbreviation! —
" he should be therefore publicly whipped before
all the scholars.

" That he should be suspended as to taking his
degree of Bachelor.

" Sit alone by himself in the Hall, uncovered at
meals, during the pleasure of the President and
Fellows, and be in all things obedient, doing what
exercise was appointed him by the President, or
else be finally expelled from the college.

" The first was presently put in execution in the
Library before the scholars. He kneeled down,
and the instrument, Goodman Hely, attended the
President's word as to the performance of his part
in the work. Prayer was had before and after by
the President. July i, 1674."

//V— ^•'^ J^'h

Germanic Museum

IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Corporal punishment was not uncommon in
those days, and remained in force as late as the
middle of the eighteenth century, though it was
not often inflicted after 1700. Whether President
Hoar resorted to it too readily or whether he gave
the students other grounds of resentment, he became
most unpopular — so unpopular that after a couple
of years the undergraduates left the college in a
body. There is some reason to suspect that the
Rev. Urian Oakes, who was a member of the Corpo-
ration and had himself wanted to be president, had
a hand in fomenting the trouble. If this was the
fact, his machinations were only too successful;
Hoar resigned in 1675, broken in health and spirit,
and did not long survive the disgrace.

Oakes then received the appointment that he
coveted, but his enjoyment of authority was also
brief, and his administration was colorless.

John Rogers, who bore a great reputation for
piety, succeeded him, but only for a year. Of his
incumbency the credulous Cotton Mather relates
the following anecdote:

" It was his custom to be somewhat long in his
daily prayers with the scholars in the College Hall.
But one day, without being able to give reason of it,
he was not so long, it may be by half, as he used to

THE STORY OF HARVARD

be. Heaven knew the reason. The scholars, re-
turning to their chambers, found one of them on
fire; and the fire had proceeded so far that if the
devotion had held three minutes longer, the College
had been irrecoverably laid in ashes, which now
was happily preserved."

In 1685 ^he Rev. Increase Mather became presi-
dent, and Harvard College was thrust prominently
into politics. Mather was a many-sided person, of
zeal and ability, a leader in the aifairs of the colony,
as well as a theologian. He was, however, self-
seeking, had a sharp eye always to his own advan-
tage and advancement, and stubbornly resisted any
encroachment on what he chose to regard as his
prerogatives. He had also some of the superstitious,
puling quality that was one of the numerous con-
temptible traits of his son Cotton. With all his
defects, he did on the whole render Harvard College
and Massachusetts a considerable service. When
Charles II had called on Massachusetts to surrender
its charter, Mather had been stanch and outspoken
in opposition. The charter was not surrendered,
but it was annulled; first Dudley and then Andros
governed the colony so tyrannically that at last
Mather was sent to England to lay the grievances
of the people before the king. He spent four years

IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

in England — with so much personal satisfaction and
enjoyment that he was forever after laying plans
to get back there — and finally he obtained a new
charter for the colony from King William. This
charter was in most essentials the negation of all
that Mather had been sent to obtain; it practically
abolished the power of the theocracy which had
hitherto ruled Massachusetts. But Mather was
diplomat enough to see that it was the best that
could be had, and to introduce all the compensations
possible. He secured the appointment of Sir Will-
iam Phips as first governor, confident of his in-
fluence over him. In fact, when Mather returned
in 1692 with the new governor and the new charter,
it was not as one who had been worsted at every
point, but as one who had triumphed over obstacles
and was sure of a welcome.

The new charter made freehold and property
instead of chyrch membership the qualification for
electing and being elected to office. The establish-
ment of a religious faith was no longer to be the
end and aim of civil government. The clergy were
shorn of their temporal power. They were not
disposed to be placated by Mather's representations
that their loss was merely nominal.

He remained a man of influence in the community,

THE STORY OF HARVARD

but no doubt the coolness of those who had been
his warm friends and admirers was one of the causes
of his consuming desire to return to England. His
duties as president of Harvard did not aiford him
complete satisfaction. The laws of the college
required the president to expound chapters from
the Old and New Testaments to the students twice
a day. To Mather, who chose to live in Boston,
where he could be in the midst of political activity
and theological controversy, and who steadfastly
refused to heed the recommendations of the General
Court and take up his residence at the college, this
duty was extremely irksome — so irksome that
he quite consistently neglected it. Aside from the
inconvenience of fulfilling it, it seemed to him a
degradation of his talents and scholarship. In a
letter to William Stoughton, who succeeded Phips
as governor, he refers contemptuously to the under-
graduates as " forty or fifty children, few of them
capable of edification by such exercises."

With the granting of a new charter to the colony,
a new charter for Harvard College seemed to be
required. That granted by the General Court in
1692 was disallowed by the king, for the reason that
It did not provide for the right of visitation by the
Crown or the Crown's representatives. Mather

IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

immediately cherished hopes of being sent to Eng-
land to adjust the difficulty about the college charter.
He made public from time to time the fact that he
was receiving intimations and assurances from on
high of a great work that he had to do in England.
His diary teems with such passages as the follow-
ing:

" Sept. 3, 1693. . . . Also saying to the Lord that
some workings of his Providence seemed to inti-
mate that I must be returned to England again
and saying, * Lord, if it will be more to your glory
that I should go to England than for me to con-
tinue here in this land, then let me go; otherwise
not,' I was inexpressibly melted, and that for a
considerable time, and a stirring suggestion, that
to England I must go. In this there was something
extraordinary, either divine or angelical."

" Oct. 29th. I was much melted with the appre-
hension of returning to England again; strongly
persuaded it would be so; and that God was about
to do some great thing there, so that I should have
a great opportunity again to do service to his name."

" Dec. 30th. Meltings before the Lord this day
when praying, desiring being returned to England
again."

" April 19th, 1694. My heart was marvellously

THE STORY OF HARVARD

melted with the persuasion that I should glorify
Christ in England."

With all these meltings and with all Mather's
active scheming to bring about such a divine end,
he did not convince the General Court of the
necessity for the mission. Cotton Mather, most*
officious of busybodies, seconded his father's efforts,
but to no purpose. In 1697 ^^^ General Court
granted another charter, which was no more ac-
ceptable to President Mather than the one of 1692
had been to the king. More than ever did it seem
to him desirable that he should be sent to England
to obtain a royal charter for the college. If he could
accomplish that, he could remain in England the
rest of his life, and his son Cotton could no doubt
succeed him in the presidency.

The General Court grew weary of his importunity.
April 1 6th, 1700, Cotton Mather wrote in his diary:

" I am going to relate one of the most astonishing
things that ever befell in all the time of my pilgrim-
age.

" A particular faith had been unaccountably pro-
duced in my father's heart, and in my own, that
God will carry him unto England, and there give
him a short but great opportunity to glorify the
Lord Jesus Christ before his entrance into the heav-

IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

enly Kingdom. There appears no probability of my
father's going thither "but in an agency to obtain a
charter for the College. This matter having been
for several years upon the point of being carried in
the General Assembly, hath strangely miscarried
when it hath come to the birth. It is now again
before the Assembly, in circumstances wherein if
it succeed not, it is never like to be revived and re-
sumed any more. . . . Now all on a sudden I felt
an inexpressible force to fall on my mind, an afflatus^
which cannot be described in words; none knows
it but he thai has it. ... It was told me that the
Lord Jesus Christ loved my father and loved me,
and that he took delight in us, as in two of his faith-
ful servants, and that he had not permitted us to be
deceived in our particular faithj but that my father
should be carried into England, and there glorify
the Lord Jesus Christ before his passing into glory.

" And now what shall I say! When the aifair of
my father's agency after this came to a turning
point in the Court, it strangely miscarried! All
came to nothing! Some of the Tories had so wrought
upon the Governor that, though he had first moved
this matter and had given us both directions and
promises about it, yet he now (not without base

THE STORY OF HARVARD

unhandsomeness) deferred it. The Lieutenant
Governor, who had formeriy been for it, now (not
without great ebullition of unaccountable preju-
dice and ingratitude) appeared, with all the little
tricks imaginable, to confound it. It had for all
this been carried, had not some of the Council been
inconveniently called off and absent. But now the
whole aifair of the College was left unto the man-
agement of the Earl of Bellamont, so that all ex-
pectation of a voyage for my father unto England,
on any such occasion, is utterly at an end.

" What shall I make of this wonderful matter.^
Wait! Wait!"

But waiting did not give the pious son any fresh
inspiration. He never saw anything but " base
unhandsomeness," ** unaccountable prejudice," and
" ingratitude " in the motives of those who denied
his father the coveted trip to England. And al-
though he was himself a member of the Corporation
of Harvard College, from this time on his affection
for the institution was at best intermittent and
fluctuated with his prospects of being chosen presi-
dent.

The college was prospering; one event that made
Increase Mather's administration notable was the
gift by William Stoughton, lieutenant-governor and

IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

chief justice, of a brick building, which stood for
about eighty years. This was the first Stoughton
Hall. Stoughton, the " hanging judge " of the
witchcraft trials, must always remain a dark and
sinister figure. Few episodes in New England annals
are more dramatic than that when Samuel Sewall
rose and stood in his pew in the Old South Meeting-
house while his confession of sorrow for the part
he had taken in those monstrous and insane cruel-
ties was read from the pulpit. But Stoughton, who
with Cotton Mather had been the most relentless
persecutor, sat grim and silent. He had nothing to
confess, for he regretted nothing. But he was all
through his life a good friend of Harvard College.

CHAPTER IV

LEVERETT AND WADSWORTH

IN 1 701, since Increase Mather obstinately re-
fused to take up his residence at the college and
perform the duties of president in accordance with
the General Court's conception of them, the legis-
lature lost patience and requested his resignation.
He gave it, not unwillingly; he saw now that the
mission to England would never come to pass, he
found administrative labors uncongenial, and he
had hopes that his son would be appointed to suc-
ceed him. But the Mathers, though eminent, were
not too popular; to the Calvinistic party, which had
hitherto been in power, a strong opposition was
developing; and the General Court, unwilling to
make Cotton Mather president and yet not quite
ready to assume his enmity, temporized. Instead
of appointing a president, the General Court asked
the Rev. Samuel Willard, one of the Corporation,
to take charge as vice-president. He served under
this title for six years, during which period Cotton
Mather exhibited considerable restlessness.

LEVERETT AND WADSWORTH

The revolt against Calvinistic authority acquired
greater strength, and in 1707 John Leverett, a lay-
man, was chosen president of Harvard College.
He had been a tutor in the college, and his liberal
views were extremely obnoxious to the Mathers.
Both Cotton Mather and his father assailed Gov-
ernor Dudley violently for putting Leverett forward;
Dudley bore their abuse with creditable dignity and
good temper. In the bitterness of his resentment,
Cotton Mather, though remaining a member of the
Corporation, tried in various petty ways to thwart
the plans for the college and to divert donations
intended for Harvard to Yale College, which had
recently been founded. In Yale he saw an institu-
tion that promised more rigid adherence to orthodox
Calvinism; he expressed a devout dread lest " the
dear infant should be strangled in the birth."

Leverett was an excellent president — able, act-
ive, and broad-minded. Under his administration
the college became a place where a liberal education
might be secured. Hitherto, it had been primarily
a divinity school; more than half its graduates were
clergymen; its teachings were deeply tinged with
the dark theology of the time. Now the number of
tutors was increased and the importance of studies
other than those bearing directly upon a theological

THE STORY OF HARVARD

education was recognized. In consequence, the
number of students was so augmented that not-
withstanding the building of the first Stoughton
Hall less than twenty years before, a new building
was required. The General Court appropriated
thirty-five hundred pounds to provide this, and
" a fair and goodly house of brick " was built in
1720 and called Massachusetts Hall. It still stands,
the earliest of the present college buildings.

During Leverett's administration, the first cata-
logue of books in the library was printed; it showed
thirty-five hundred volumes — two-thirds of them
theological works, most of the others in Latin.
Bacon, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton were
on the list; but Dryden, Addison, Pope, Swift, and
many others now regarded as classics did not have
a place. It is to be said that the productions of
these authors were at that time so recent as not
fairly to have established their title to permanence.

An entry in Leverett's Diary gives a glimpse of the
college discipline: "A. was publickly admonished
in the College Hail, and there confessed his Sinful
Ebccess and his enormous profanation of the Holy
Name of Almighty God. And he demeaned himself
so that the Presid* and Fellows conceived great
hopes that he will not be lost."

LEVERETT AND WADSWORTH

The prayers at which these public confessions and
admonitions were made were held at six o'clock in
the morning. After prayers there were recitations
until breakfast, which was at half-past seven.

Leverett, for all his tact and wisdom, did not have
an untroubled administration. Governor Dudley,
who had been one of the advocates of his election,
wished to have his son Paul made treasurer of the
college. His wish. was not gratified, and the dis-
appointment rankled in both father and son; for
some time afterwards the two Dudleys were mis-
chief-makers. They even encouraged one Pierpont,
who had failed to get his decree, to prosecute the
tutor who had flunked him and to appeal from the
decision of the Corporation to the courts of com-
mon law. The courts sustained the college and dis-
missed the appeal.

At this period the disorders at Commencement
became so riotous that an act was passed " for re-
forming the extravagancys of Commencement."
It provided " that henceforth no preparation nor
provision of either Plumb Cake, or Roasted, Boyled,
or Baked Meates or Pyes of any kind shall be made
by any Commencer," and that none should have
" any distilled Lyquours in his Chamber or any com-
position therewith," under penalty of a fine of

THE STORY OF HARVARD

twenty shillings and the forfeiture of the " pro-
hibited Provisions." Acts were also passed " for
preventing the Excesses, Immoralities, and Disorders
of the Commencements." The Overseers recom-
mended to the Corporation an act " to restrain un-
suitable and unseasonable dancing in the College "
and to prevent " the great disturbances occasioned
by tumultuous and indecent noyses."

These legislative attempts seem to have effected
a very temporary improvement. At any rate some
twenty years later three troubled fathers who had
sons about to graduate offered to give the college
one thousand pounds " if a trial was made of Com-
mencements this year in a more private manner."
The Corporation wished to accept this offer, but
the Overseers — whose character must have changed
since the time when they urged more drastic legis-
lation — declined it.

In Leverett's last years there was discord between
the House of Representatives and the Corporation,
which to some extent represented the aristocratic,
royal government. The House made a vain attempt
to alter the make-up of the Corporation. Leverett
found himself in the uncomfortable position of hav-
ing to oppose first one group of supporters, and
then another. He and his family were dependent

LEVERETT AND WADSWORTH

chiefly on grants from the General Court; these
amounted to one hundred and fifty pounds annually.
The cost of living had increased, and inflation had
depreciated the currency. Under such stress of
circumstances, it might have been politic for Lever-
ctt to make concessions to the General Court and
to uphold them in their differences with the Cor-
poration. He was never governed by motives of
self-interest, however; in 1724 he died bankrupt,
and his children had to sell the mansion house of
Governor Leverett, which had descended to them
from their great-grandfather.

Excellent president though Leverett was, the chief
laudations of the historian of this period are not
lavished upon him. Benjamin Peirce, the recorder
of these early days, indulged his enthusiasm in the
following marveling words: "The College had
already begun to engage the attention of one of the
most extraordinary families that Providence ever
raised up for the benefit of the human race. It is
scarcely necessary to say that I allude to the family
of Mollis."

The benefactions of this family began in 1 7 19
with an invoice of twelve casks of nails and one of
cutlery from Thomas Hollis, a London merchant.
For the next nine years he made frequent and liberal

THE STORY OF HARVARD

gifts, sometimes of money, sometimes of books or
other articles; in all he gave the college about
two thousand pounds. He founded ten scholar-
ships and begged the Corporation to beware of
recommending for them " rakes or dunces."

Thomas HoUis was about sixty years old when he
first began to make gifts to Harvard College. He
had formed a friendship by correspondence with
Benjamin Colman, a tutor in the college and member
of the Corporation, and in consequence of it " the
main course of his bounty was directed towards New
England, and particularly to Harvard College."

There were reasons why he should not have felt
favorably disposed towards Harvard. He was a
Baptist — a member of a sect that was abhorred
by some of the college authorities and disliked by
most of them. HoUis was well aware of the un-
friendly attitude that prevailed in New England
towards members of his denomination, and gave
the college much wise advice as well as books and
money. In making a gift to the library he wrote:
" If there happen to be some books not quite ortho-
dox, in search after truth with an honest design,
don't be afraid of them. ... * Thus saith Aristotle,*
* Thus saith Calvin,' will not now pass for proof in
our London disputations." The largest settle-

LEVERETT AND WADSWORTH

ments of Baptists were in Pennsylvania and New
Jersey. " If any from those parts," he urged,
" should now or hereafter make application to your
college, I beseech the College to show kindness to
such, and stretch their charity a little. It is what I
wish the Baptists to do, though I have no great ex-
pectation."

The New England mind of the period was, how-
ever, not capable of entertaining tolerant views or
even of appreciating generosity of nature as well as
of purse. When Hollis, among his other bene-
factions, founded a professorship of divinity, which
he expressly stipulated was to be non-sectarian, the
Overseers took measures of a devious nature to
frustrate his design and to exclude Baptists from
ever occupying the chair that he had established.
He saw clearly enough the object at which they
aimed and which they tried by tortuous subter-
fuges to conceal, and contented himself with ad-
ministering a mild reproof.

Even after such treatment at the hands of his
beneficiaries, Hollis continued to assist the college.
He had confidence in Leverett, and in Benjamin
Colman, with whom he continued to carry on an
interesting and pithy correspondence. Indeed, there
is no one among the early Harvard worthies who

THE STORY OF HARVARD

appears through what is recorded and through his
own written words in a more attractive light than
this elderly patron overseas. When, on the acces-
sion of George II, the Corporation felt moved to
send an address to the king, brimming with pious
expressions and assurances, they asked Thomas
Mollis to have it presented. He wrote in reply:

" I have showed your address to sundry persons,
who say your compliments to our court now are
fifty if not one hundred years too ancient for our
present polite style and court. . . . What have
courts to do to study Old Testament phrases and
prophecies? "

A request for his portrait drew a slightly satirical
response. He wrote to Colman:

" I have been prevailed on at your instance to
sit the first time for my picture, a present to your
I Hall. I doubt not that they are pleased with my

: monies, but I have some reason to think that some

I among you will not be pleased to see the shade of a

Baptist hung there, unless you get a previous
i order to admit it, and forbidding any indecencies

to it."

Eventually he sent his " shade " and wrote:
i " Perhaps some among you will be pleased with

the picture for the painter's performance, though
i 52

LEVERETT AND WADSWORTH

others may secretly despise it because of the particu-
lar principle of the original."

A kindly, modest, generous gentleman was Thomas
HoUis; he shines all the brighter by contrast with
the Mathers of the time. And his son and his son's
sons inherited his friendship for Harvard College
and his generous disposition.

Upon Leverett's death in 1724, the Corporation
chose the Rev. Joseph Sewall to succeed him. Cot-
ton Mather, who had lived on in expectancy, was
moved to a fresh outburst of wrath:

" I am informed that yesterday the Six men who
call themselves the Corporation of the College met
and, contrary to the epidemical expectation of the
country, chose a modest young man, of whose piety
(and little else) everyone gives a laudable character.

" I always foretold these two things of the Cor-
poration: first, that if it were possible for them to
steer clear of me, they will do so; secondly, that if
it were possible for them to act foolishly, they will
do so.

" The perpetual envy with which my essays to
serve the Kingdom of God are treated among them,
and the dread that Satan has of my beating up his
quarters at the College led me into the former senti-
ment; the marvellous indiscretion with which the

THE STORY OF HARVARD

affairs of the College are managed led me into the
latter."

Sewall felt unable to accept so ill-paid an office,
and Cotton Mather's hopes of a chance to beat up
Satan's quarters in the college were roused once
more. But with the election of Benjamin Colman
they were finally extinguished; in a last outcry of
disgust, Mather exhibited his immeasurable ego-
tism:

" The Corporation of the miserable College do
again on a fresh opportunity treat me with their
accustomed indignity."

Simply because they had failed to make him
president!

Colman followed Sewall's example and declared
that he could not undertake the office unless a
proper salary was fixed by the General Court. In
the depreciated state of the currency, the president's
salary of one hundred and fifty pounds a year was,
as Leverett had found, too little to provide a living.
But the General Court refused to have its hand
forced, and Colman therefore declined the election.

Next the Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth was offered
the honor, and accepted it. Thereupon the General
Court, which had not been amenable to suggestion
or entreaty, did bestir itself to make some better

Harvard HaU

LEVERETT AND WADSWORTH

provision for the president. It undertook to build
a house for him — of which the present Wadsworth
House is a survival and amplification — and it in-
creased his salary to four hundred pounds a year.
Unfortunately the continued depreciation of the
currency was proportionate to this increase, so
that the measures for the president's relief were not
particularly effective. The house that was begun
for him was not finished; Wadsworth had to move
into it when it was incomplete.

The thirteen years of Wadsworth's administra-
tion were not especially noteworthy. Before this
time the tutors had acted in all matters of discipline
on their own personal authority; each man had
dealt with each individual case as it came before
him. Under Wadsworth, however, they began to
administer discipline and punishment as a board,
no longer individually. The change was necessitated
by the growing disorders of thp time. A reaction
from the strict Puritanism of the earlier years was
taking place, and the students were making the most
of it. The Commencements were more lively than
ever, and more than ever disturbing to the sober
element of the community.

In 1734 the president and fellows of the Corpora-
tion issued some severe regulations in an attempt

THE STORY OF HARVARD

to enforce upon the undergraduates a more religious
and studious life.

" All the scholars shall, at sunset in the evening
preceding the Lord's Day, retire to their chambers
and not unnecessarily leave them; and all dis-
orders on said evening shall be punished as viola-
tions of the Sabbath are. . . . And whosoever shall
profane said day — the Sabbath — by unnecessary
business, or visiting, walking on the Common, or in
the streets or fields, in the town of Cambridge, or
by any sort of diversion before sunset, or that in
the evening of the Lord's Day shall behave himself
disorderly, or any way unbecoming the season, shall
be fined not exceeding ten shillings.

" That the scholars may furnish themselves with
useful learning, they shall keep in their respective
chambers, and diligently follow their studies; ex-
cept half an hour at breakfast; at dinner from
twelve to two; and after evening prayers till nine
of the clock. To that end, the Tutors shall fre-
quently visit their chambers after nine o'clock in
the evening and at other studying times, to quicken
them to their business."

It does not seem as if, under such a system of
vigilance and visitation, the students could fall
into very dissolute ways. But a few years later,

LEVERETT AND WADSWORTH

George Whitefield, an evangelist who was stirring
up New England, visited Harvard College and ex-
pressed his displeasure at the dissipated habits of
the young men. He declared that the conditions
at Oxford were no worse — a charge so damaging
that it greatly disturbed and incensed the college
authorities.

CHAPTER V

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

IN 1737 the Reverend Edward Holyoke of
Marblehead was elected to succeed Wads worth
and entered upon an administration of more than
thirty years. During that period, stirring events
were taking place in the world outside which af-
fected the tranquillity of the college. In 1745 and
1756 the wars with France drew to the frontier
many young men who would otherwise have been
at their books. The provincial debt created by these
wars was enormous and resulted as usual in an issue
of paper money and general financial embarrass-
ment. These causes reduced the number of students
at Harvard; moreover, sectarian jealousies were
instrumental in affecting temporarily the pros-
perity of the college. And finally, at the end of
Holyoke's administration, came the preliminary
rumblings of the Revolution.

One of the first matters that Holyoke had to deal
with was the misconduct of Isaac Greenwood, the

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

first Hollis professor of mathematics. HolHs, who
had known Greenwood in England, was not en-
thusiastic over his appointment, but refrained
from prejudicing the Corporation against him. Be-
fore long Greenwood's intemperate habits were
subjecting him to repeated admonishment, and at
last, in 1738, since all his efforts to reform proved
vain, he was dismissed from the college. Shortly
afterwards the same fate overtook Nathan Prince,
who was not only a tutor, but also a member of
the Corporation.

Possibly this behavior on the part of two members
of the government was significant of a general lax-
ness of conduct. At any rate, in 1740 a committee
was appointed to inquire into the state of the college.
From time to time this committee brought in cer-
tain recommendations, and pointed out certain
evils, as " the costly habits of many of the scholars,
their wearing gold or silver lace, or brocades, silk
nightgowns, etc., as tending to discourage persons
from giving their children a college education."

The practises of the seniors on the day when they
met to choose their class officers drew a word of
admonition which carried the wisdom of Dogberry:
" It is usual for each scholar to bring a bottle of
wine with him, which practice the Committee ap-

THE STORY OF HARVARD

prehend has a natural tendency to produce dis-
orders."

At the same time, the authorities showed a dis-
position to modify the severity of some of the old
laws. Thus, in 1759, it was voted that " it shall be
no offence if any scholar shall, at Commencement,
make and entertain guests at his chamber with
punch." Two years later a still further concession
was made: the limitation, "at Commencement,"
was removed, and it was announced that the schol-
ars might " in a sober manner " entertain strangers
and each other with punch, — " which, as it is
now usually made, is no intoxicating liquor."

This was certainly a naive admission, and like-
wise worthy of Dogberry; it cannot be supposed
that the undergraduates of Harvard have ever had
a uniform and strictly temperance receipt for making
punch.

The fines for misconduct were as follows:

s. d.

Absence from prayers 2

Tardiness at prayers i

Absence from public worship 9

Tardiness at public worship 3
111 behavior at public worship, not

exceeding 9

Neglect to repeat the sermon 9

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

s. d.

Absence from professor's public

lecture 4

Profanation of the Lord's Day, not

exceeding 3

Tarrying out of town without leave, . •

not exceeding i 3 per diem.

Going out of college without proper

garb, not exceeding 6

Frequenting, taverns, not exceeding i 6
Profane cursing, not exceeding 2 6

Playing cards, not exceeding 5

Selling and exchanging without

leave i 6

Lying, not exceeding i 6

Drunkenness, not exceeding i 6

Going upon the top of the college i 6
Tumultuous noises i 6

" "2d offence 3

Refusing to give evidence 3

Rudeness at meals i

Keeping guns, and going skating i

Fighting, or hurting persons, not

exceeding i 6

Card-playing was apparently regarded as more
than three times as bad as lying, profanity was
nearly twice as bad as drunkenness, and fighting
was only half as objectionable to the authorities
as refusing to " peach " on one's friends.

In spite of the not altogether prosperous condi-
tion of the college, several buildings were added

THE STORY OF HARVARD

during Holyoke's administration. In 1737 Madam
Holden, the widow of a London merchant, and her
daughters gave four hundred pounds for the build-
ing of the chapel which bears Holden's name. It
•was soon devoted to other purposes than those of
worship. In 1762 the Overseers presented a peti-
tion to the General Court, pointing out that nearly
a hundred of the undergraduates had to take rooms
in private houses, and asking for an appropriation
to build a new dormitory. Massachusetts Hall
could receive only sixty-four students; a building
at least one-third larger than that was therefore
required. In accordance with this petition, the
House granted two thousand pounds out of the
public treasury, and the building thus erected was
named Hollis Hall.

Shortly after performing this friendly and gener-
ous act, the General Court was driven out of Boston
by an epidemic of smallpox. On January 16, 1764,
it was adjourned to Cambridge and went into session
in the old Harvard Hall. The college library, on the
second floor of the building, was occupied by the
governor and the council; the hall below by the
representatives. On the night of January 24 fire
destroyed the building with all its contents — li-
brary, philosophical apparatus, and personal be-

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

longings. How important a calamity this was may
be inferred from the account given in the Massachu-
setts Gazette for February 2, 1764.

" Cambridge, January 25, 1764.
" Last night Harvard College suffered the most
ruinous loss it ever met with since its foundation.
In the middle of a very tempestuous night, a severe
cold storm of snow, attended with high wind, we
were awakened by the alarm of fire. Harvard Hall,
the only one of our ancient buildings which still
remained, and the repository of our most valuable
treasures, the public Library and Philosophical Ap-
paratus, was seen in flames. As it was a time of va-
cation, in which the students were all dispersed, not
a single person was left in any of the Colleges,
except two or three in that part of Massachusetts
most distant from Harvard, where the fire could
not be perceived till the whole surrounding air be-
gan to be illuminated by it. When it was discovered
from the town, it had risen to a degree of violence
that defied all opposition. It is conjectured to have
begun in a beam uiider the hearth in the Library,
where a fire had been kept for the use of the General
Court, now residing and sitting here, by reason of
the smallpox at Boston; from thence it burst out into

THE STORY OF HARVARD

the Library. The bcx)ks easily submitted to the
fury of the flame, which, with a rapid and irresist-
ible progress, made its way into the apparatus
chamber, and spread through the whole building.
In a very short time this venerable monument of
the piety of our ancestors was turned into a heap
of ruins. The other Colleges, Stoughton Hall and
Massachusetts Hall, were in the utmost hazard of
sharing the same fate. The wind driving the fla-
ming cinders directly upon their roofs, they blazed
out several times in different places; nor could they
have been saved by all the help the town could
offer, had it not been for the assistance of the gentle-
men of the General Court, among whom his Excel-
lency the Governor was very active; who, notwith-
standing the extreme rigor of the season, exerted
themselves in supplying the town engine with
water, which they were obliged to fetch at last from
a distance, two of the College pumps being then
rendered useless. Even the new and beautiful
HoUis Hall, though it was on the windward side,
hardly escaped. It stood so near to Harvard that
the flames actually seized it, and, if they had not
been immediately suppressed, must have carried it.
" But by the blessing of God on the vigorous
efforts of the assistants, the ruin was confined to

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

Harvard Hall; and there, besides the destruction
of the private property of those who had chambers
in it, the public loss is very great, perhaps irrepa-
rable. The Library and the apparatus, which for
many years had been growing, and were now judged
to be the best furnished in America are annihi-
lated."

The library thus destroyed contained five thou-
sand volumes. Of the three hundred and twenty that
John Harvard had bequeathed, only one was saved
— " The Christian Warfare Against the Devill,
World, and Flesh." The intrinsic value of the
books and the " philosophical apparatus " has
been many times replaced, but we must even now
feel a sentimental regret for the loss of practically
all that identified the college with the personality
of its earliest benefactor.

Prompted possibly by some sense of responsibility
for the disaster, the General Court at once voted
a sum of money for rebuilding. The Overseers
appointed a Committee of Correspondence to
obtain contributions from England as well as from
the colonies for the purchase of books. Subscrip-
tions were immediate and liberal. Thomas Hollis,
a great-nephew of the first benefactor of that name,
was the largest contributor.

THE STORY OF HARVARD

Harvard Hall, rebuilt, was finished in 1766; it
stands on the site of the burned building. The
library occupied the western half of the upper
story; the eastern half was divided into rooms for
the philosophical department and for a museum
of natural and artificial curiosities. On the lower
floor, the eastern half was used for commons, the
western for prayers. The total cost of the build-
ing was about sixty-nine hundred pounds.

Massachusetts Hall and HoUis Hall soon proved
inadequate to house all the students. Therefore, in
June, 1765, the General Court passed an act " for
raising by Lottery the sum of 3200 pounds, for build-
ing another Hall for the Students of Harvard College
to dwell in." This was the first attempt to secure
money for the institution by a method which became
for some years popular. The preamble to the act
stated " that the buildings belonging to Harvard Col-
lege are greatly insuflicient for lodging the Students
of the said College, and will become much more so
when Stoughton Hall shall be pulled down, as by its
present ruinous state it appears it soon must be.
And whereas there is no Fund for erecting such
Buildings, and considering the great Expense which
the General Court has lately been at in building
HoUis Hall, and also in rebuilding Harvard College,

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

It cannot be expected that any further provision for
the College should be made out of the Public Treas-
ury; so that no other resort is left but to private
Benefactions, which it is conceived will be best
excited by means of a Lottery."

Shares in this attractive enterprise were readily
disposed of, and in a short time the proceeds enabled
the college to build another brick dormitory near
Hollis Hall. By the time that it was finished, the
dilapidated old Stoughton Hall was ready to be
demolished, and the new building received the old
building's name.

Some of the more important text-books used in
the courses at this time were Virgil's iEneid, Cicero's
Orations, Homer, the Greek Testament, Euclid's
Geometry, Watts's Logic, and Locke's " On the
Human Understanding." The committee on the
state of the college made various recommendations
for broadening the instruction; the most important
was that the tutors, instead of teaching more than
one subject or group of subjects, should henceforth
specialize in one.

On account of the unsatisfactory food to be had
at the commons, many of the students preferred
to board at private houses. This was displeasing
to the Overseers, who in 1757 suggested to the Cor-

THE STORY OF HARVARD

poration " that it would very much contribute
to the health of that society," — the undergrad-
uates, — " facilitate their studies, and prevent ex-
travagant expense, if the scholars were restrained
from dieting in private families." They recom-
mended, as a concession and inducement, " that
there should be pudding three times a week, and
on those days their meat should be lessened."
Not until 1765, however, did the Corporation
impose these recommendations upon the college.

The students did not submit to them meekly.
There were " great disorders, tending to subvert
all government." That delightful historian, Ben-
jamin Peirce, writing some time later, yet at a
period when uprisings against the quality of food
were frequent, makes an impassioned defence of
the commons : " Their beneficial effects are ex-
tended beyond the walls of the College. To a great
degree, the Commons, it is believed, regulate the
price and quality of board even in private families,
and thus secure in the town a general style of living
at once economical and favorable to health and to
study. But the very circumstance which is their
chief recommendation is the occasion also of all
the odium which they have to encounter; that
simplicity which makes the fare cheap and whole-

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

some and philosophical renders it also unsatisfactory
to dainty palates; and the occasional appearance
of some unlucky meat or other food is a signal for
a general outcry against the provisions."

In 1746 " breakfast was two sizings of bread and
a cue of beer," and " evening Commons were a
Pye." " As to the Commons," wrote an old
gentleman of the class of 1759, " there were in the
morning none while I was in College " — the stu-
dents had then formed the habit of breakfasting
at private houses. — " At dinner we had, of rather
ordinary quality, a sufficiency of meat of some kind,
either baked or boiled; and at supper we had either
a pint of milk and half a biscuit, or a meat pye or
some other kind. We were allowed at dinner a cue
of beer, which was a half-pint, and a sizing of bread,
which I cannot describe to you. It was quite suf-
ficient for one dinner." Each student carried to the
dining-room his own knife and fork, and when he
had dined wiped them on the table-cloth. In 1764
it was decided " that it would be much for the
interest of the Scholars to be prevented breakfast-
ing in the townspeople's houses;" and breakfast
at the commons was made compulsory.

About one adjunct to the commons, Peirce has
a dithyrambic passage: "The Buttery removed all

THE STORY OF HARVARD

just occasion for resorting to the different marts of
luxury, intemperance, and ruin. This was a kind
of supplement to the Commons, and offered for
sale to the Students, at a moderate advance on the
cost, wines, liquors, groceries, stationery, and in
general such articles as it was proper and necessary
for them to have occasionally."

That so meritorious an institution should have
' been permitted to pass out of existence the modern
undergraduate must regret. The Co-operative store,
though filling a useful function in undergraduate
life, does not supply even " at a moderate advance
on the cost " all the essentials that were furnished
by the buttery, nor can it be said in any sense to
compete successfully with " the different marts of
luxury, intemperance, and ruin.'*

Besides fulfilling the useful purposes above de-
scribed, the buttery was an office where records were
kept of absences from the college. The students
of the present day would no doubt find the intro-
duction of a grog shop into the office of the recorder
delightfully incongruous, but in the middle of the
eighteenth century such a juxtaposition apparently
excited no wonder. The butler, who was a college
graduate and received a salary of sixty pounds a
year, dispensed the potables, kept the records,

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

rang the bell, and saw that the hall was kept clean
and in good order. He was bar-keeper, stationer,
recorder, bell-ringer and janitor, all in one.

The price of board at the commons was between
seven and eight shillings a week. A committee ap-
pointed in 1766 to investigate the disorders found
" that there has been great neglect in the Steward
in the quality of the Butter provided by him for many
weeks past," but that " the act of the Students in
leaving the Hall in a body and showing contempt of
the Tutors was altogether unwarrantable and of
most dangerous tendency." The students were
somewhat impressed by the committee's recom-
mendations and censure; but in 1768 disorders
again broke out. The committee reported " that
a combination had been entered into by a great
number of the students against the government;
that in consequence great excesses had been per-
petrated; that on one Saturday night brickbats
were thrown into the windows of Mr. Willard the
Tutor's room, endangering the lives of three of the
Tutors there assembled, and that for this audacious
act four Students, who were discovered to have
committed it, were expelled." Later, although
President Holyoke protested, the Corporation and
Overseers reinstated them, because " many who

THE STORY OF HARVARD

have been great friends and benefactors to the
Society have condescended to intercede in their
behalf."

" A Description of a Number of Tyrannical
Pedagogues," by a student who signed himself
Clementiae Amator^ was published in 1769. The
opening invocation,

" Begin, O Muse! and let your themes be these:
Tutors forever should their pupils please,"

expresses a perennial undergraduate sentiment. The
poet laments that at Harvard this is not the case:

" The tutors now instead of being free,
Humane and generous as they ought to be,
An awful distance, dictatorial, keep.
And mulcts and frowns on all their pupils heap."

Then follows the description of one:

" Before his pupils he will scowl and flout,
And with importance turn his chair about.
There strut and then display a lofty crest.
To strike a terror into every breast."

Another

" spits his venom with sarcastick wit
And grins in laughter at the object hit."

And of yet another the poet complains,

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

" Instead of acting with an open soul
He peeps unmanly into every hole,
And sometimes listens at his pupil's door,
Then runs back tiptoe as he came before."

Finally the lover of mercy exhorts his brethren:

" I would advise the sons of Harvard then
To let them know that they are sons of men,
Not brutes, as they would to the world display
By their ill usage and unmanly way;
Then cast contempt upon the demigods.
Their frowns, their mulcts, their favors and their
nods."

The indignant lines possibly fomented the up-
rising which took place when the faculty announced
that excuses for absence would not be received un-
less offered beforehand. The students met under
a tree which they called the Tree of Liberty, and
declared the faculty's rule " unconstitutional."
They then proceeded to smash windows and break
furniture; several rioters were expelled. The senior
class were so aggrieved at this that they asked the
president to transfer them to Yale in order that they
might get their degrees at that institution; the
other classes asked to be discharged. Neither re-
quest was granted, and at last the revolutionists
accepted the " unconstitutional " legislation.

THE STORY OF HARVARD

Some of the rules and prohibitions of the period
were as follows:

" No Freshman shall wear his hat in the College
Yard, unless it rains, hails, or snows, provided he
be on foot and have not both his hands full.

" No Freshman shall speak to a Senior with his
hat on.

" All Freshmen . . . shall be obliged to go on
errands for any of their Seniors, graduates or under-
graduates, at any time, except in studying hours,
or after nine o'clock in the evening.

" When any person knocks at a Freshman's
door except in studying time, he shall immediately
open the door without inquiring who is there.

" The Freshmen shall furnish bafts, balls and
footballs for the use of the students, to be kept in
the Buttery.

" The Sophomores shall publish these customs to
the Freshmen in the Chapel, whenever ordered by
any in the Government of the College, at which
time the Freshmen are required to keep their places
in their seats and attend with decency to the read-
mg.

The class of 1798 was the first freshman class to
be emancipated from this condition of servitude.
Joseph Story, who was then in college, was one of

--wtA-t

The Union

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

the leaders in bringing about the reform. He took
an unprecedented step when he invited his fag
into his room and made him his friend.

Harvard was not an especially democratic in-
stitution in those days — far less so than at pres-
ent. Both the college authorities and the under-
graduates themselves showed a great regard for
rank; students were placed in class according to
the rank of their parents. " Scholars were often
enraged beyond bounds for their disappointment
in their place,'* writes a graduate of the period.
" Often it was some time before a class could settle
down to an acquiescence in their allotment. The
highest and the lowest in the class were often as-
certained more easily than the intermediate members
where there was room for uncertainty whose claim
was best, and where partiality no doubt was some-
times indulged. The higher part of the class had
generally the most influential friends, and they
commonly had the best chambers in College as-
signed to them. They had also a right to help
themselves first at table in Commons. The fresh-
man class was placed within six or nine months
after their admission. The official notice of this
was given by having their names written in a large
German text, in a handsome style, and placed in

THE STORY OF HARVARD

a conspicuous part of the College Buttery, where
the names of the four classes of undergraduates
were kept suspended until they left College. If
a scholar was expelled, his name was taken from
its place; or if he was degraded — which was con-
sidered the next highest punishment to expulsion
— it was moved accordingly. As soon as the fresh-
men were apprised of their places, each one took
his station according to the new arrangement at
recitation, and at Commons, and in the Chapel,
and on all other occasions. And this arrangement
was never afterward altered either in College or in
the Catalogue, however the rank of the parents
might be varied." Fortunately this snobbish custom
was soon to be abolished; in 1772 the students were
placed in alphabetical order.

However aristocratic in its manners and cus-
toms Harvard College may have been at this time,
revolutionary ideas were in the air there as else-
where. Among the public disputations at the
Commencement of the class of 1740 we find the
following:

" Whether it be lawful to resist the Supream
Magistrate, if the Common Wealth cannot other-
wise be preserved.

" Affirmed by Samuel Adams."

CHAPTER VI
THE revolution: harvard in exile

PRESIDENT HOLYOKE died in 1769; during
the last few months of his life the college was
the center of political strife and ferment. In 1768
the students of the senior class had unanimously
voted to take their degrees " in the manufactures
of this country," and at Commencement in July
they all appeared in clothes of American manu-
facture. The contumacy of the colony had exas-
perated the British government, which now pro-
ceeded to coercive measures. In November, 1768,
two British regiments of infantry and a part of a
regiment of artillery were landed in Boston. A
military guard was stationed in State Street; can-
non were pointed at the door of the State House.
The feelings of the legislature and of the people were
outraged; and when it became apparent that this
military rigor was not to be relaxed, the House of
Representatives declared to Governor Bernard that
an armament by sea and land investing this me-

THE STORY OF HARVARD

tropolis, and a military guard, with cannon pointed
at the very door of the State House where this
Assembly is held, is inconsistent with that dignity,
as well as that freedom, with which we have a
right to deliberate, consult, and determine/'

The royalist governor was not particularly ac-
cessible to such a protest, but when it was repeated
in even more pressing terms, he replied that al-
though he had no authority to remove the troops,
he would immediately adjourn the legislature to
Cambridge.

So in May, 1769, the General Court took pos-
session of Harvard College, to the great excitement
of the students, by act of sovereign authority.
It went into session in Holden Chapel and remained
in session until after Commencement; on that
day the House of Representatives dined with the
Corporation in the college hall. In the spring of
this same year, the students formed a military
organization, which they called the Marti-Mercurian
Band. They held frequent drills and had a striking
uniform — blue coats faced with white, nankeen
breeches, white stockings, top-boots, and cocked hats.

The Rev. Samuel Locke of Sherburn was cho-
sen president in December, 1769; his adminis-
tration was short and ineffectual. In those stirring

THE REVOLUTION: HARVARD IN EXILE

days, the young men at Harvard found it hard to
fix their attention on their books; the most de-
termined president and faculty probably could not
have curbed their restless spirit. They lived in
the midst of distracting and agitating influences.
The legislature continued to meet in the college
halls; in March, 1770, Lieutenant-Governor Hutch-
inson, Governor Bernard being absent in Europe,
prorogued the General Court from Boston to Har-
vard College. There it remained until the last
week in April. Then Hutchinson caused writs
to be issued convening the General Court in May
again at Harvard College. The Corporation now
protested and expressed " their deep concern at
the precedent, and the inconvenience already intro-
duced."

Indeed the undergraduates must have chafed
more and more at their lessons and recitations, must
often have shirked them and slipped into Holden
Chapel instead, where they might hear Samuel
Adams and James Otis and gaze with admiration
upon the resplendent and majestic figure of John
Hancock. The debates and the oratory of those
days may not have qualified the students particularly
for their degrees, but probably no classes since that
time have left Harvard with a clearer understanding

THE STORY OF HARVARD

of the great contemporaneous problems or a more
vivid interest in the affairs of state. The Rev.
Andrew Eliot wrote to Thomas Hollis:

" The removal of the General Court to Cambridge
hinders the scholars in their studies. The young
gentlemen are already taken up with politics. They
have caught the spirit of the times. Their dec-
lamations and forensic disputes breathe the spirit
of liberty."

The protest of the Corporation did not go un-
heeded. Instead of exercising their sovereign
authority, the governor and council made a formal
application for the use of the college halls on the
day of the general election. The Corporation, " on
due consideration of the circumstances of the case,"
granted the request. To show their further scru-
pulous regard for the rights of the college, the House
of Representatives, meeting on May 30, declared
" that they did not choose to enter the chapel of
the College without the concurrence of those with
whom the property and care of it is betrusted." In
reply, the Corporation at once passed a vote " sig-
nifying their consent to oblige the House, in such
a case of necessity."

The sympathies of the Corporation and the col-
lege were strongly with the popular cause. Never-

THE REVOLUTION: HARVARD IN EXILE

theless, when Hutchinson received his appointment
from the Crown as governor, the Corporation gave
a dinner in his honor at the college and congratu-
lated him upon his commission. Hutchinson re-
plied to the congratulatory address, which, he
said, " expresses so much piety and loyalty to the
King " — a sentiment that the most careful reading
fails to detect — and declared his earnest desire to
" encourage this ancient seat of learning." An
alumnus of the college, he was popular with the
undergraduates; on the occasion of one of his
visits, a choir of students sang an anthem in this
strain: " Lo! thus shall the man be blessed who
fears the Lord! For thus saith the Lord, From hence-
forth, behold! all nations shall call thee blessed;
for thy rulers shall be of thy own kindred, your
nobles shall be of yourselves, and thy Governor
shall proceed from the midst of thee."

Feeling perhaps that the courtesy which they
had shown Hutchinson might be misinterpreted, or
else repenting it and desiring to affront him, the
Corporation now conferred an unprecedented honor
on John Hancock, who, of all the patriots of the
day, was most obnoxious to the governor. They
voted formally that he " be invited to dine in the
Hall whenever there is a public entertainment

THE STORY OF HARVARD

there, and to sit with the governors of the College."
Their enthusiasm, for this popular hero carried
them further; desiring to heap honors upon him,
impressed by his wealth, and overlooking his prod-
igality, they elected him Treasurer of Harvard. A
more unfortunate choice they could not possibly
have made.

At the end of 1773, President Locke resigned,
and was succeeded by the Rev. Samuel Langdon
of Portsmouth, an ardent member of the patriot
party. The prevailing sentiment was so strongly
revolutionary that no one who held loyalist views
could have been considered for the presidency of
the college. Yet even then there were a few Tories
among the undergraduates, who advertised their
convictions and their loyalty by bringing " India
tea " into the commons and drinking the detested
stuff — a practise that provoked frequent dis-
orders.

Immediately after the fight at Lexington, April
^9> ^77 Sj ^he militia of Massachusetts and the
neighboring colonies began to concentrate in Cam-
bridge for the siege of Boston. The students were
obliged to leave the college and go home — which
it may be believed under such circumstances they
did most unwillingly. Some of the buildings were

THE REVOLUTION: HARVARD IN EXILE

turned into barracks for the troops, and officers
were quartered in the president's house. The
books were removed from the library in Harvard
Hall to.Andover.

On July 2, Washington arrived in Cambridge
and took command of the American Army. On
July 31, the Corporation of Harvard College met
at Fowle's Tavern in Watertown and voted that
since " on account of the confusion and distress of
the times '* a public Commencement was imprac-
ticable, degrees should be conferred by general
diploma. A few weeks later the Overseers voted
" that the education of the scholars of Harvard
College cannot be carried on at Cambridge while
the war in which we have been forced to engage for
the defence of our liberties shall continue: and
therefore that it is necessary some other place shall
be speedily appointed for that purpose." Concord
was chosen, and there in September the college
opened its temporary quarters.

Both branches of the legislature now passed a
vote " reconjmending to the Corporation and Over-
seers not to appoint persons as governors and in-
structors but such whose political principle they
can confide in, and also to inquire into the prin-
ciples of such as are now in office and dismiss those

THE STORY OF HARVARD

who by their past or present conduct appear to be
unfriendly to the liberties and privileges of the
Colonies." The principles of all the officers of
instruction and government appeared upon in-
spection to be sufficiently correct.

The British troops evacuated Boston on March
17, 1776. On April 3 the Corporation and Over-
seers met at Watertown and voted that the degree
of LL. D. be conferred on George Washington as
an " expression of the gratitude of this College
for his eminent services in the cause of his country
and to this society." Washington was the first
person to receive the degree of LL. D. from Har-
vard. On the day that they passed this vote, the
Corporation appealed to the Council and House of
Representatives to make good the damages sus-
tained by the college during the occupation of its
buildings by the American army. Immediate
compensation was requested in order that the
students might return to Cambridge as soon as
possible. The students themselves, who were most
discontented with their quarters in Concord, likewise
petitioned the legislature. Although the question
of damages remained unsettled, the students reas-
sembled in Cambridge on June 21, 1776, after an
absence of about fourteen months.

THE REVOLUTION: HARVARD IN EXILE

After the actual outbreak of the Revolution,
there seems to have been in the college but one
British sympathizer. This individual had absented
himself from the college during its sojourn at Con-
cord; now he applied for re-admission and was
refused, on the ground that he " had been found
guilty, and imprisoned by the General Court for
frequent clamoring, in the most impudent, insulting
and abusive language, against the American Con-
gress, the General Court of the Colony, and others
who are and have been exerting themselves to save
the country from misery and ruin."

For nearly sixteen months after the return of the
college to Cambridge, the damages to the buildings
remained unestimated and unrepaired. In October,
1777, the Overseers appointed a committee to con-
fer with a committee of the General Court about
the matter; but now fresh difficulties arose.

Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga on October
17. His army was ordered to Cambridge, to remain
there until it could be transported to Europe.
General Heath, who had been charged with the
duty of providing for the troops, could not find
quarters for them all in Cambridge and applied
to the Corporation for possession of one or more
of the college buildings in which to house the British

THE STORY OF HARVARD

officers. He also made a similar application to the
Council of the Province, who laid it before the Over-
seers. The Overseers advised the Corporation to
consent " that one or more buildings might be al-
lowed to the said officers, until they could be accom-
modated elsewhere, upon full security given that all
damages accruing to the buildings, by fire or other-
wise, should be repaired."

The Corporation felt that the Overseers were un-
duly impressed with the necessity for such measures
as they recommended, and consented only that
" the house they had lately purchased for the resi-
dence of the students should be employed for that
purpose, containing twelve rooms, upon reasonable
terms, if the object could not otherwise be accom-
plished."

T^is cautious offer did not satisfy General Heath
at all. On November 19 he peremptorily directed
the governors of the college to remove the students
and their possessions as soon as possible and to pre-
pare to receive the officers of Burgoyne*s army. The
Overseers again advised the Corporation to comply
with his demands. Accordingly, about the first
of December, the students were dismissed and in-
structed not to return until the first Wednesday
in February.

THE REVOLUTION: HARVARD IN EXILE

Nevertheless the Corporation really did prevail
in the dispute. Burgoyne's troops had arrived
in Cambridge early in November and were quar-
tered in barracks on Prospect Hill and Winter Hill.
The officers had been lodged in private houses;
and the college building to which Burgoyne himself
and some of his staff were now transferred was that
house which the Corporation had offered — Ajv
thorp House, as it is known to-day. The students
returned at the beginning of February, as had been
appointed, and in May the library was replaced
in Harvard Hall after an absence of more than two
years.

Burgoyne's army was shipped back to England
in November. Its presence in the little town
of Cambridge had been a serious embarrassment
to the college. The usual public Commencement
had to be omitted that year, owing to " the want
of necessary accommodations, the houses being
crowded with British officers."

In 1779 the convention to frame a constitution
for Massachusetts drew up three articles confirming
the ancient rights, privileges, and government of
Harvard College. This section in the constitution
of Massachusetts is entitled " The University."

Langdon resigned the presidency in 1780. He

THE STORY OF HARVARD

had not been wholly successful; in a period over-
shadowed by such grave difficulties no man could
have been wholly successful. Langdon had un-
fortunately lost the confidence of a number of the
students and of some men connected with the
government of the college. There seems to have
been an intrigue against him; a meeting of the
three upper classes was called and a memorial to
the Corporation drawn up, charging Langdon with
" impiety, heterodoxy, unfitness for the office of
preacher of the Christian religion, and still more
for that of President." In spite of the offensively
canting and hypocritical cast of these resolutions,
they were passed unanimously — a fact discredit-
able enough to the whole undergraduate body.

Twelve students were appointed to wait upon
Langdon and invite him to resign. The interview
took place on a Saturday; until he read the reso-
lutions which were now presented to him, he had been
quite unaware of the extent of his unpopularity.
He was deeply wounded. The following Monday
he addressed the students after morning prayers,
announced to them that he would resign in accord-
ance with their desire, and added with emotion
that he and his family would then be thrown desti-
tute on the world. The students were moved to

THE REVOLUTION: HARVARD IN EXILE

some degree of compassion; the three upper classes
held another meeting, rescinded the resolutions
that had reflected on Langdon's piety, and stated
merely that thpy believed him to be unfit for the
office of president.

Langdon's subsequent career warrants the be-
lief that he was the victim in some measure of
undergraduate caprice. He became pastor of a
church near Portsmouth, was chosen in 1788 a
delegate to the state convention, and played an in-
fluential part in bringing about the acceptance of
the Federal Constitution.

The embarrassments of Harvard during the
Revolution were greatly increased by the conduct
of the treasurer, John Hancock. An aristocrat of
wealth and boundless " patriotism," he was the
most popular man in Massachusetts; his election
to the office of treasurer in 1773 was thought to be
a glorious stroke of policy on the part of the Har-
vard authorities. He had made over to the college
five hundred pounds from his uncle's estate; it
was well known that the elder Hancock had in-
tended to make this gift to the college, but had
died without doing it. John Hancock's act in
carrying out the expressed desire of his uncle, whose
entire fortune he inherited, was extolled in the

THE STORY OF HARVARD

highest terms as a mark of rare nobility; the gift
redounded to the credit of the nephew rather than
of the uncle, and no condescendingly generous rich
man was ever bespattered with more fulsome lauda-
tion.

After Hancock had held the office of treasurer
for about a year, during which he had persistently
ignored all its duties, the Corporation became uneasy.
From November, 1774, to April, 1775, through
President Langdon, they kept entreating him for
a statement and settlement of accounts. To most
of these appeals he vouchsafed no reply whatever.
When, however, they deferentially suggested that
he deliver the books and papers of the college to
a committee, he showed great resentment and
practically defied the Corporation to remove him.
This they did not dare to do; Harvard College
could not afford to incur John Hancock's displeasure;
his following throughout the country was altogether
too large and powerful.

In April, 177s, without having made the account-
ing that had been asked for, he went to Philadelphia.
There he was elected President of the Continental
Congress, and there he continued to ignore the ap-
peals of Harvard and Langdon's supplications.
At last the Corporation ventured to suggest in the

THE REVOLUTION: HARVARD IN EXILE

most delicate and flattering way possible that with
his vast and weighty public duties, he must find
the office of treasurer of the college irksome; but
he would not take the hint. Instead, in May, 1776,
he proceeded to an amazing step; he had all the
papers, bonds, and notes of the college brought
from Cambridge and delivered to him in Phila-
delphia. After getting these safely into his posses-
sion, he declined more firmly than ever to make a
settlement.

The Overseers then took a hand in the matter
and dispatched messages to him, without eliciting
any response. After about six months of futile
pleading with him, the Corporation sent a special
messenger to Philadelphia to bring back the papers
and an accounting. The messenger was successful
to this extent: he returned with bonds and notes
to the amount of sixteen thousand pounds, but he
had been unable to obtain any accounting or state-
ment of the balance that remained in the treasurer's
hands. In March, 1777, the Overseers advised the
Corporation to elect another treasurer. This put
the Corporation into a great flutter. They held
three meetings, preparing a twenty-eight page let-
ter to Hancock, in the hope that it would mollify
any resentment that he might entertain on account

THE STORY OF HARVARD

of their ungraciousness, and also in the hope that
it might induce him to resign. This letter he never
answered. So, in July, 1777, the Corporation
screwed up their courage and elected Ebenezer
Storer treasurer in place of John Hancock.

This action angered Hancock so much that the
Corporation were quite terrified. His political
influence with the legislature, on whose bounty
the college depended for the support of its presi-
dent and professors, and his vindictiveness of
temper, made him a dangerous person to af-
front. Therefore the Corporation took steps to
conciliate him. In January, 1778, they passed a
vote, requesting him " to permit his portrait to be
drawn at the expense of the Corporation, and placed
in the philosophy chamber, by that of his uncle."
Hancock had not the graciousness to reply.

Throughout the year 1778 both Overseers and Cor-
poration tried all their persuasive arts on Hancock;
they wanted to obtain a settlement from him, and at
the same time not to give him further offence. In
February, 1779, they got to the point of threaten-
ing to bring suit. This drew from Hancock the
announcement that as soon as the General Assembly
should adjourn, he would settle his accounts. The
General Assembly adjourned, and he did not settle

THE REVOLUTION: HARVARD IN EXILE

his accounts. A motion in the Board of Overseers to
bring suit against him was rejected. As he was
in the height of his popularity and power, the major-
ity of the Board did not dare to attack him.

He was elected Governor of Massachusetts in
1780. The Corporation continued to pursue their
pusillanimous course by making a complimentary
address to the chief magistrate and expressing " their
happiness that a gentleman is placed at the head
of the General Court and of the Overseers who has
given such substantial evidence of his love of letters
and affection to the College by the generous and
repeated benefactions with which he hath endowed
it." If the college authorities entertained any
expectations that the governor's conscience would
be stirred by this undeserved tribute, they were
disappointed. In March, 1781, Hancock took his
seat, ex officio^ as president of the Overseers, but
left his accounts still unsettled.

Two years later the committee on Treasurer
Storer's accounts had the hardihood to state at a
meeting over which Hancock presided that " it
is not yet known what sums the late Treasurer had
received and paid, his accounts being still unsettled."
Hancock was silent. Soon after that, the Overseers
met again, and, finding that Hancock was absent,

THE STORY OF HARVARD

unanimously voted that at their next meeting they
should come to a final resolution respecting the
measures necessary to effect a settlement of the late
treasurer's accounts. At the next meeting Hancock
presided, and nobody ventured to bring up the
subject.

After having been elected governor five times
in succession, Hancock, in January, 1785, announced
his intention to resign — which he did in February.
In this interval he made a statement of accounts,
showing that there was due from him to the college
ten hundred and fifty-four pounds. From that
time until Hancock's death in 1793, Harvard College
struggled vainly to get this money. Some years
after his death, his heirs reluctantly discharged the
debt, but could not be persuaded to pay interest on it.

From the foundation of the college to the year
1707, the payments from the public treasury to
those who held the office of president never exceeded
and probably never equalled one hundred pounds
a year. During Leverett's presidency, the grant
did not average one hundred and eighty pounds a
year. Wadsworth received four hundred pounds a
year — forty pounds from the rents of Massachu-
setts Hall. Holyoke received uncertain annual
grants.

Massachusetts Hall

THE REVOLUTION: HARVARD IN EXILE

In 1777 the college funds were invested in Con-
tinental and state paper, which continued to de-
teriorate in value, so that by 1786 the college had
lost more than half its capital.

The damage done to the college buildings by the
American troops in 1775 was estimated at four
hundred and forty-eight pounds; this sum was al- -
lowed and paid by the General Court, but in de-
preciated currency which was worth exactly one
quarter of the claim. During the Revolutionary
period, the president derived his support from the
rents of Massachusetts Hall — now sixty pounds —
from an annual grant of two hundred pounds from
the General Court, and from fees; his total in-
come was about three hundred pounds. Each pro-
fessor received about two hundred pounds annually.

The Reverend Joseph Willard was elected presi-
dent in 1 78 1. More than eighteen months elapsed
after his inauguration, and no grant was made either
to him or to the professors, who by that time were
in serious financial difficulties. The Corporation
appealed then to the legislature, which granted the
president one hundred and fifty pounds and the
professors about one hundred pounds each, but
intimated that such patronage of the college must
soon cease. This grant by no means relieved the

THE STORY OF HARVARD

professors from all financial embarrassment; the
Corporation therefore made loans to them, in
the expectation of being reimbursed by the legis-
lature. For two years the Corporation continued
to make loans to its needy officers; then the legis-
lature made its last grant. By 1792 the loans
amounted to three thousand pounds. As the State
was then more prosperous, the Corporation ap-
pealed to the General Court for indemnification.
The General Court ignored the appeal, and the
Corporation cancelled the indebtedness of the
professors and submitted to the loss. During all
this period the wise judgment of the treasurer,
Ebenezer Storer, and of James Bowdoin and John
Lowell, two members of the Corporation, served
Harvard well, and together with gifts from with-
out, enabled her to restore her shattered fortunes.

CHAPTER VII

THE PERIOD OF READJUSTMENT

THE success of the patriot cause greatly im-
proved the financial standing of Harvard
College. The funds of the college had been invested
chiefly in Continental and Massachusetts certifi-
cates; the life of the college had been virtually
pledged to the struggle for independence. In
1793 the appreciation in the securities of the college
was such that its total endowment amounted to
one hundred and eighty thousand dollars as con-
trasted with an endowment of about eighty thou-
sand dollars, at the beginning of the Revolutionary
War. By 1800 the endowment had been raised to
nearly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
The college no longer needed to appeal to the State
for regular support; it had entered upon the era of
prosperity which has continued and increased to the
present day.

Medical professorships — the foundation of the
Medical School — were established in 1782. Not

THE STORY OF HARVARD

until 1 8 14, however, was any other special pro-
vision made for the students of medicine. Then
Holden Chapel, which had already been put to
many varied and temporal uses, was set apart for
medical lectures; " and costly wax preparations
were purchased to supersede the necessity of dis-
secting human subjects."

The Phi Beta Kappa Society, which was founded
at William and Mary College in Virginia, was es-
tablished at Harvard in 1781. Its objects were
" the promotion of literature and friendly inter-
course among scholars." Worthy as such a purpose
might appear, it did not win universal commenda-
tion, and a number of students presented a petition
to the authorities, complaining against the society.
A committee of Overseers, headed by John Hancock,
proceeded to investigate, and reported that " there
is an institution in the University, with the nature
of which the Government is not acquainted, which
tends to make a discrimination among the students."
This report was not acted upon; and the scholarly
society was permitted to survive.

In 1786, to lessen the expense of dress, a uniform
was prescribed, the color and form of which were
minutely set forth. The classes were distinguished
by means of frogs on the cuffs and button-holes;

THE PERIOD OF READJUSTMENT

silk was prohibited, and home manufactures were
recommended. The idea was unpopular and had
to be enforced with severe penalties; in 1797 it had
become so obnoxious and difficult of enforcement
that it was radically modified, and soon abandoned.

Washington visited the college in 1790; no pic-
turesque account of the occasion is preserved. He
received an address from the Corporation and in
reply expressed his hope that " the Muses may long
enjoy a tranquil residence within the walls of this
University."

From 1789 to 1793, Number 8, Hollis Hall, was
occupied by Charles Angier, concerning whom Mr.
John Holmes, the too little known brother of Dr.
Holmes, has a pleasing passage:

" He conceived the grand idea of a perpetual
entertainment and a standing invitation. The
legend says, * His table was always supplied with
wine, brandy, and crackers, of which his friends
were at liberty to partake at any time.' We take
upon us, in the absence of historical evidence, to
vouch for the constancy of Mr. Angler's friends.
No better goal of pilgrimage for a graduate of con-
vivial turn can be imagined. The shrine is gone,
but the flavor of a transcendent hospitality will
always pervade Number 8."

THE STORY OF HARVARD

Joseph Story and William Ellery Channing were
members of the class of 1798, and through their
eyes we have been given a glimpse of the college
life of the time. Amusements, books, resources
were few. " Two ships only plied as regular packets
between Boston and London, one in the spring and
one in the autumn, and their arrival was an era in
our college life. They brought books and periodi-
cals from England."

The social life of the undergraduates was re-
stricted: "different classes were almost strangers
to each other. The students had no connection
whatever with the inhabitants of Cambridge by
private social visits. There was none between the
families of the president and professors of the Col-
lege and the students. ... A free and easy inter-
course with them (the professors) would have been
thought somewhat obtrusive on one side and on the
other would have exposed the student to the im-
putation of being what in technical language was
called a * fisherman' — a rank and noxious char-
acter in college annals. . . • Invitations to social
parties in Boston rarely extended to college circles."

Yet a little anecdote has come down to show that
the professors of those days could be kindly and
human. Washington Allston, who was then an

100

THE PERIOD OF READJUSTMENT

undergraduate, was as clever at mathematics as
he was with his pencil, and at his room Channing
stopped one day to get help on a problem that
puzzled him. Allston furnished him with the solu-
tion, and Channing was so amused by it that he
audaciously presented it at the recitation. " It
consisted of pyramids of figures heaped upon one
another's shoulders in various attitudes, each of
which was a slightly caricatured portrait of the
professors and tutors."

It is not quite clear how even the accomplished
Allston could give a portrait value to mathematical
symbols, but we must take the chronicler's word for
it, and for the fact that the professor laughed
heartily over the caricature and permitted the class
to share his amusement.

Channing and Story were both members of the
Speaking Club — afterwards called the Institute
of 1770, under which name it still exists. The prin-
cipal aim of this society at that time was improve-
ment in elocution and oratory. The members were
chosen from the sophomore and junior classes,
twelve or fifteen from each. They met in the evening
" at some retired room," and took turns in de-
claiming. Each orator, after his performance, was
subjected to frank criticism.

101

J • ^

THE STORY OF HARVARD

The Hasty Pudding Club, which was organized
in 1795 with about twenty members from the junior
class, was a literary society, and admission to it
was partly on a basis of scholarship. Meetings were
held on Saturday evenings; the members ate hasty
pudding and molasses and closed the exercises by
singing a hymn. The Porcellian Club, which had
come into existence a few years earlier, was from the
beginning " of a more luxurious and convivial cast."

Story writes that in 1798 " badges of loyalty to
our own government and of hatred to France were
everywhere worn in New England, and the cockade
was a signal of patriotic devotion to * Adams and
liberty.* It was impossible that the academical
walls could escape the common contagion." One
hundred and seventy Harvard students — practi-
cally the entire undergraduate body — offered an
address to President Adams, which was drawn up by
Channing and began as follows:

" Sir: We flatter ourselves you will not be dis-
pleased at hearing that the walls of your native
seminary are now inhabited by youth possessing
sentiments congenial with your own." It ended with
the solemn offer of " the unwasted ardor and un-
impaired energies of our youth to the service of our
country."

102

... • t

THE PERIOD OF READJUSTMENT

Shortly after composing this impassioned ad-
dress, Channing was chosen to give at Commence-
ment an oration on " The Present Age." The sub-
ject appealed to his excited soul; but when the
president told him that in treating it he must avoid
all political discussion, Channing felt outraged, and
declared that under such conditions he would de-
liver no oration — even though the refusal should
cost him his degree. His incensed and sympathetic
classmates applauded his determination.

" I could join you, my friend," wrote one of them,
" in offering an unfeigned tear to the manes of
those joys which are forever fled; but indignation
has dried up the source from which that tear must
flow. The government of College have completed
the climax of their despotism. They have obtained
an arrit^ which from its features I could swear is
the offspring of the French Directory. Although
they pretend to be firm friends to American liberty
and independence, their embargo on politics, which
has subjected you to so many inconveniences, is
strong proof to me that they are Jacobins, or at
best pretended patriotSy who have not courage to
defend the rights of their country.

" William, should you be deprived of a degree
for not performing at Commencement, every friend

103

THE STORY OF HARVARD

of liberty must consider it as a glorious sacrifice
on the altar of your country."

President Willard allowed the ferment to go on
for a fortnight; then he sent for Channing and in a
conciliatory spirit made concessions that were suffi-
cient to placate the proud young orator. At the
same time, Channing was not permitted to express
himself as freely as he wished. The restriction
weighed so heavily on him that towards the close
of his oration he glanced towards President Willard
and then, turning to the audience, exclaimed: " But
that I am forbid, I could a tale unfold which would
harrow up your souls!" This melodramatic out-
burst was received with " unbounded applause; "
and after he left the stage, the audience cheered
him for many minutes.

" The students who boarded in Commons," wrote
Professor Sidney Willard of the class of 1798, " were
obliged to go to the kitchen door with their bowls
or pitchers for their suppers, where they received
their modicum of milk or chocolate in their vessel,
held in one hand, and their piece of bread in the
other, and repaired to their rooms to take their
solitary repast. There were suspicions at times that
the milk was diluted by a mixture of a very common
tasteless fluid, which led a sagacious Yankee student

104

THE PERIOD OF READJUSTMENT

to put the matter to the test by asking the simple
carrier-boy why his mother did not mix the milk
with warm water instead of cold. ' She does/ re-
plied the honest youth.'

There were more harmful adulterations than
this. In 1791? in order to prevent an examination
from being held, some students poured a quantity
of tartar emetic into the kitchen boilers before
breakfast. Coffee was made from the water in
the boilers, and at breakfast practically every one
was taken violently sick. The conspirators were
sickest of all, for they had drunk most heartily,
in order to divert suspicion from themselves. One
of them had been seen, however, while committing
his infamous act, others were questioned and con-
fessed, and finally all were rusticated for several
weeks.

President Willard died in 1804; Samuel Webber
succeeded him. In the same year the Boylston
Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory was es-
tablished, and John Quincy Adams elected the
first professor. Stoughton Hall was built in 1805
from the proceeds of the lotteries that had been
conducted for a number of years; and in 1813
Holworthy Hall was completed, the funds for it
having been raised by the same questionable meas-

105

THE STORY OF HARVARD

ures. An article in a Boston newspaper of 1795
shows to what insidious practices the college au-
thorities resorted:

" So great is the demand for Tickets in the /zd
Class of Harvard College Lottery that it has be-
come doubtful whether there will be any to dispose
of, for several days previous to the 9th of April
next, on which day the Lottery is positively to com-
mence drawing. The spirit which animated the
first settlers of this country, to promote useful
knowledge, has, if possible, encreased with the
present generations; and this is the evidence, That
there is scarcely a single one in the community,
either male or female, who is not more or less in-
terested in the College Lottery.

" The lisping babe cries, * Papa, care for me,
Pray buy a Ticket — and in time you'll see
The pleasing benefit thy son will find
In Learning faithfully to serve mankind.* "

Holworthy Hall derived its name from Sir Mat-
thew Holworthy, who with a bequest of one thou-
sand pounds had achieved the distinction of making
the largest single gift to Harvard in the seventeenth
century. With the building of more dormitories,
the need of resident oflScers to keep order and watch
over the undergraduates seemed to make itself

106

THE PERIOD OF READJUSTMENT

felt; and in 1805 proctors came into being. In
the same year an even more important development
took place; by the election of the Rev. Henry Ware,
a Unitarian, to the HoUis Professorship of Divinity,
Harvard College showed its sympathy with liberal
theological views and alienated the confidence and
support of the Calvinistic leaders. Mr. Ware was
a methodical gentleman; he had a sermon for
every Sunday of the four college years. Thus every
undergraduate heard every sermon in his repertory,
and nobody heard the same sermon twice. Under
Mr. Ware's leadership. Harvard became a distinct-
ively Unitarian college and did not alter its char-
acter in this respect for more than half a century.
The Rev. John Thornton Kirkland succeeded
President Webber in 18 10. He was the son of a
missionary to the Oneida Indians; he had entered
college at the age of fifteen, but withdrew the next
year to enlist in the army raised to suppress Shays*
Rebellion. Of President Kirkland, Lowell has
given an attractive picture: "This life was good
enough for him, and the next not too good. The
gentlemanlike pervaded even his prayers. His were
not the manners of a man of the world, nor of a
man of the other world either; but both met in him
to balance each other in a beautiful equilibrium.

107

THE STORY OF HARVARD

Praying, he leaned forward on the pulpit cushion,
as for conversation, and seemed to feel himself —
without irreverence — on terms of friendly but
courteous familiarity with heaven."

He was a plump, cheery, pleasant-faced gentle-
man. Prescott, writing of the oral entrance ex-
aminations, which terrified him, records gratefully
the fact that President Kirkland sent in to the
candidates a " good dish of pears " and treated
them " very much like gentlemen." He was some-
thing of a wit, and one at least of his aphorisms,
which has the Johnsonian flavor, has earned its
place in the list of familiar quotations: " The chief
value of statistics is to confute other statistics."

Lowell records a pleasant anecdote of him:
" Hearing that Porter's flip — which was exemplary
— had too great an attraction for the collegians,
he resolved to investigate the matter himself.
Accordingly, entering the old inn one day, he called
for a mug of it, and having drunk it, said, ' And so,
Mr. Porter, the young gentlemen come to drink your
flip, do they .'^ ' * Yes, sir — sometimes.' * Ah,
well, I should think they would. Good day, Mr.
Porter,' and departed, saying nothing more; for he
always wisely allowed for the existence of a certain
amount of human nature in ingenuous youth."

108

THE PERIOD OF READJUSTMENT

There seems little doubt that potations among
the college youths were both general and generous.
Lowell tells of the Harvard Washington Corps, —
the successor of the Marti-Mercurian Band, —
' " whose gyrating banner, inscribed Tarn Marti
quant Mercurioy on the evening of training-days,
was an accurate dynamometer of Willard's punch
or Porter's flip. It was they who, after being royally
entertained by a maiden lady of the town, entered
in their orderly book a vote that Miss Blank was
a gentleman. I see them now, returning from the
imminent deadly breach of the law of Rechab,
unable to form other than the serpentine line of
beauty, while their officers, brotherly rather than
imperious, instead of reprimanding, tearfully em-
braced the more eccentric wanderers from military
precision."

The Harvard Washington Corps was composed
of juniors and seniors, but officered by seniors
only. To hold a command was a great distinction.
The uniform required the officers to appear in
tights, and the first question asked about any candi-
date for promotion was: " How is the man off for
a leg.? "

President Kirkland's administration was note-
worthy not only for the building of Holworthy,

109

THE STORY OF HARVARD

University, and Divinity Halls, but also for the
founding of the Law School, which was established
in 1 817. In spite of the losses that the commerce of
New England endured during and after the War
of 181 2, the prosperity of Harvard College main-
tained a steady growth in this period. The salaries
of the professors were increased; the grounds sur-
rounding the buildings were planted with trees and
shrubbery; the place acquired a greater air of
dignity.

Edward Everett, of the class of 181 1, described
the Yard as it was when he was a freshman, be-
fore the improvements made in Kirkland's adminis-
tration: " A low, unpainted, board fence ran along
the south of Massachusetts and east of Hollis
and Stoughton, at a distance of two or three rods,
forming an enclosure of the shabbiest kind. The
College woodyard was advantageously posted on
the site of University Hall; and farther to the north-
east stretched an indefinite extent of wild pasture
and whortleberry swamp, the depths of which were
rarely penetrated by the most adventurous fresh-
man." Cambridgeport was so bare of trees and
houses that from some windows in the college build-
ings the houses on Mount Vernon Street in Boston,
above what is now Louisburg Square, could be seen.

110

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THE PERIOD OF READJUSTMENT

Until the beginning of the nineteenth century,
the curriculum, although it had been somewhat
relieved of its early theological trend, remained ex-
traordinarily limited. It consisted of Latin, Greek,
mathematics, English composition, philosophy, the-
ology, and either Hebrew or French, as the students
might elect. No other subjects were studied. Ex-
cept for French, there was no opportunity given
the student to learn any modern language. There
was no instruction in history or in economics, in
chemistry, geology, or botany. But an interest
in all these matters was awakening in America,
and Harvard College could not afford to be back-
ward in meeting it. The influence of some pro-
fessors who had studied in Europe supplied also a
beneficial impetus from within.

In consequence, the college was soon brought
into more direct relation with life and with its con-
temporaneous problems, and the undergraduates
were given an opportunity to obtain at least the
elements of an education that was not aridly classi-
cal. But notwithstanding this progress, in which
Harvard led every other college of the period, edu-
cation there as elsewhere was still far from breaking
away from the classical convention that had becD
imposed by the founders.

Ill

CHAPTER VIII

THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN ERA

IN 1825 the Corporation and the Overseers passed
a new code of laws, under which the governing
body was named the " Faculty of the University,"
and the university was divided into departments.
The students were given greater freedom and a
wider choice of studies, and were no longer required
to board at the commons.

This liberalizing of the college was largely the
work of Professor George Ticknor, a graduate of
Dartmouth, who had studied for some years in
Europe and brought to Cambridge an idea of
broader culture than had hitherto existed in that
community. But the traditions and influence of
foreign scholarship which he represented met with
opposition from the other professors, even from the
liberally minded president, and in Ticknor's own
eyes his efforts failed. After fifteen years of service
he resigned in discouragement; Harvard seemed to
him incurably provincial. As one of his friends wrote :

112

THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN ERA

" It was the college of Boston and Salem, not of
the Commonwealth."

Nevertheless, under Kirkland, Ticknor had been
the pioneer; in the ensuing years, when the old
professors dropped off, they were usually succeeded
by men who had studied abroad, and^ who shared
Ticknor's views.

And Ticknor had in after years the satisfaction of
knowing that he had been the first to stimulate
Prescott in those studies which were later to bring
him fame as a historian. The first part of Prescott's
college life did not augur a brilliant career as a
scholar. He entered Harvard as a sophomore in
1811, a lively and humorous youth with a bright
mind, but by no means given to study. He had
a fondness for making resolutions and confiding
them 'to friends and acquaintances.

" These resolutions related often to the number
of hours, nay, the number of minutes per day to be
appropriated to each particular exercise or study; the
number of recitations and public prayers per week
that he would not fail to attend; the number of times
per week that he would not exceed in attending balls,
theatrical entertainments in Boston, etc. . . . He
would be sure not to run one minute over^ however
he might sometimes fall short of the full time for

113

THE STORY OF HARVARD

learning a particular lesson, which he used to con
with his watch before him, lest by any inadvertence
he might cheat himself into too much study. On
the same principle he was careful never to attend
any greater number of college exercises nor any less
number of evening diversions in Boston than he
had bargained for with himself."

In his- junior year, one day after dinner at the
commons, there was a disturbance just as he was
going out of the room. He turned to see what was
happening and was struck in the eye by a hard piece
of bread. The blindness and the suffering that he
endured the rest of his life arc well known. The
injury seemed to sober him and to mark a turning
point in his character and in his habits. His gay
and humorous spirit did not forsake him; he still
gave way to bursts of wild merriment, — as when in
an amateur rehearsal of " Julius Caesar," at the
words, " thou meek and bleeding piece of earth,"
addressed to the prostrate friend who took that part,
he roared with laughter and broke up the perform-
ance, — but he worked with a determination that
he had never shown before. Mathematics he
could not grasp; so, for a time, he committed to
memory every prescribed demonstration — every
symbol and letter — and gave perfect recitations

114

THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN ERA

daily. This laborious method became as irksome
as it was foolish; he went to the professor and told
him the truth. He explained that if necessary he
was willing to go on committing to memory, but
that there was no use in it, for he really could not
understand the subject at all, and that he thought
he could employ his time more profitably. The
professor good-naturedly let him off from further
recitations, but continued to require his presence
in the class-room. In his other studies Prescott
did so well that he was elected into Phi Beta Kappa,
and at graduation he delivered a poem in Latin.

Prescott had been out of Harvard three years
when Emerson entered college. Emerson did not
cut much of a figure. Singing in the Yard was a
popular diversion; and early in his freshman year
Emerson, wishing to have a share in this amuse-
ment, went to the singing-master, who said to him:
" Chord."

So I made some kind of a noise," said Emerson,

and the singing-master said: * That will do, sir.
You need not come again.' "

The experience seems to have been rather typical
of the sage's undergraduate career. One of his class-
mates recorded in his journal: " I went to the chapel
to hear Emerson's dissertation; a very good one,

115

THE STORY OF HARVARD

but rather too long to give much pleasure to the
hearers." He was made class poet, but only after
seven others had been successively elected and had
successively declined the honor. His class appears
to have been an unusually turbulent one, even for
those roistering days, and Emerson doubtless felt
himself not in sympathy with the prevailing
spirit.

On November i8, 1818, his classmate, Josiah
Quincy, pasted a dry twig on the leaf of his journal
and made this entry: " Resistance to tyrants is
obedience to God. This twig was my badge; all
the class tore them from the Rebellion Tree and
agreed to wear them in their bosoms."

The freshmen and sophomores dined in two large
halls separated by folding doors, which were usually
locked. One Sunday evening the doors were ac-
cidentally left open; a sophomore shied a plate in
among the freshmen, and a battle, in which much
crockery was smashed, resulted. Five of the sopho-
mores were suspended. The rest of the class es-
corted them out of the town, cheering them as they
went, then, returning to the college yard, assembled
round the Rebellion Tree.

President Kirkland sent for the three ringleaders,
— Adams, Otis and Quincy, — advised them to leave

116

THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN ERA

town, and forbade them " at their peril ** to return
to the tree.

So they promptly went back to the tree and
Adams harangued the crowd, ending as follows:
" Gentlemen, we have been commanded, at our
peril, not to return to the Rebellion Tree; at our
peril we do return! "

There was immense applause and the class voted
to remain in rebellious session all day and absent
themselves from all college exercises. In conse-
quence, there were a number of rustications and sus-
pensions, and after a while the rebellion wore itself
out.

A few notes from the undergraduate career of
Stephen Salisbury, of the class of 1817, give an
idea of the simplicity of life and the formality of
manners of the period. He paid six cents for a foot-
ball. His father wrote to him: "Your Scates shall
be sent to you, but you must not scate on any Ponds
or Rivers nor neglect your studies for any Amuse-
ments." His mother begged him to skip rope in
his room when it was too stormy to go for a walk.

At his Commencement, his parents issued a
number of invitations in this style: "Mr. & Mrs.
Stephen Salisbury request the honor of 's com-
pany at Dinner at the Rooms of their Son, at Mr,

117

THE STORY OF HARVARD

Hearsey's, in Cambridge, on Commencement Day."
A typical reply was the following: " With their
respectfull acknowledgments to Mr. & Mrs. Salis-
bury, Mr. & Mrs. Lincoln regret that indispensable
avocations must deprive them of the satisfaction
of participating personally with Mr. Salisbury &
his friends the pleasures of a Commencement
which will place on the theatre of the world their
promising son."

The commons in University Hall, conducted by
one Cooley, occasioned much dissatisfaction. Thus
an epicure of the class of 1824 records in his diary:

"16 Nov. 1820. We have lately had very bad
commons, but more especially this day. I hope
they will soon be better. Several have gone out to
board.

" 28 Nov. At noon commons we have a great
plenty of roast goose. Probably every one in the
hall (which amounted to eight or ten) might have
been bought for a dollar. Indeed I never saw such
tough, raw-boned, shocking, ill-looking animals ever
placed upon a table. I hope something better will
come on to-morrow.

" 29 Nov. Commons still remains very bad.
At supper the bread was mere dough; that is, it
was not half baked. I have not eaten in commons for

118

THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN ERA

a week past one dollar's worth of anything what-
ever.

" 26 June. In commons Mr. Cooley gave a turtle
soup to the four classes to-day, having invited the
chief of those who boarded out. But whether it
was turtle soup or not I am unable to say, as I
never ate any. At least no one appeared to like
it, and, as for myself, I never dined so poorly in my
life.

" 29 June. Mr. Cooley has put up an advertise-
ment on the University board, stating that he has
now employed cooks superior to any in the United
States. This, however, is only to keep the students
in commons."

Thus did an originally sanguine, hopeful nature
become the abode of cynicism and distrust.

Going to the theater was punishable with a
fine of ten dollars, and going to a party in Boston
made the student liable to a fine of five dollars.
These penalties seem not to have been often
inflicted, but indulgence in such pleasures in the
winter months carried with it certain hardships.

" The difficulty of getting a light with numb fingers
on a cold night was a petty misery of life," wrote
Quincy. " In vain were the flint and steel clashed
together; too often it happened that no available

119

THE STORY OF HARVARD

spark was the result. The tinder, which we made
from old shirts, would absorb dampness in spite
of all precautions to keep it dry. Sometimes after
shivering for half an hour, during our efforts to
kindle it, we were forced to go to bed in the dark
in a condition of great discomfort, and feeling that
we had purchased our amusement at an extrava-
gant cost."

The college owned a little fire-engine, " scarcely
fit to water a flower bed,'* and the undergraduates
enjoyed the privilege of trundling out this machine
whenever there was an alarm of fire. The captain
of the engine company was appointed by the pres-
ident, but the minor offices were elective. " No
sooner did the fire bell ring than we got into all
sorts of horrible and grotesque garments. Hats in
the last stages of dilapidation and strange ancestral
coats were carefully kept for those occasions. Feel-
ing that we were pretty well disguised by costume
and darkness, there seemed nothing to hinder that
lawless abandonment to a frolic which is so delight-
ful to unregenerate man when youthful blood bub-
bles in his veins. I cannot remember that we ever
rendered the slightest assistance in extinguishing
a fire; indeed, there were so many good reasons for
stopping on the way that we commonly arrived

120

THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN ERA

after it was out. And then, if we were tired, we had
an impudent way of leaving the tub upon the ground,
well knowing that the government would send for
their property the next day.**

The students made it their custom upon return-
ing from a fire to regale themselves with " black-
strap " — an intoxicating compound in which rum
and molasses were the principal ingredients. " It
finally broke up the engine company, and this was
perhaps the only good thing which ever came of it.
For matters at last reached a crisis; the govern-
ment came to their senses, sold the engine, and
broke up the association. But to take the edge off
the cruelty of this necessary act, it was decided
that the company should be allowed a final meeting.
And so we celebrated the obsequies of the old machine
with an oration and a poem — following up these
exercises with other proceedings of which a detailed
account is unnecessary."

With no athletics in which to vent their energy,
it is no wonder that the students were often restless
and riotous. They entered college usually at the age
of fifteen, sometimes, as in the case of Motley, at
the age of thirteen. Study was not merely diflftcult;
it was attended often by severe bodily discomfort.
In winter the college rooms were wretchedly cold.

121

THE STORY OF HARVARD

Harrison Gray Otis kept two lumps of anthracite
on his mantelpiece as curiosities. Not for many
years did coal come into use. " Our light came from
dipped candles, with very broad bases, and grad-
ually narrowing to the top. These required the
constant use of snuffers — a circumstance which
hindered application to an extent that in these days
of kerosene and gas can scarcely be appreciated.
The dual brain with which mankind are furnished
seemed to us to show intelligent design. One brain
was clearly required to do the studying, while it
was the business of the other to watch the candles
and look after the snuffers."

The college owned a sloop, the Harvard^ which
made an annual voyage to Maine to bring back
wood from some timber lands that the college had
there acquired. This practice continued until the
eminent mathematician, Nathaniel Bowditch, de-
monstrated to the authorities that it would be
cheaper for them to buy firewood from the nearest
and dearest dealer than to send their own sloop to
their own timber lands for it.

The Med. Fac. Society, which was until a few
years ago a celebrated and sometimes a notorious
organization, originated in HoUis 13, in 18 18. Four
members of the class of 1820 were the founders. It

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THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN ERA

was from the beginning devoted to pranks and mis-
chief. " Frequent meetings were called by the
President to carry out the object of the institution,'*
writes John Holmes. " They were always held ,
in some student's room in the afternoon. The room
was made as dark as possible and brilliantly lighted.
The * Faculty ' sat around a long table in some
singular and antique costumes, almost all in large
wigs and breeches with knee buckles. . . . The
President wore the academic square cap, perhaps
of abnormal size. The table at which he presided
was covered with specimens of anatomy, collected
by the ^ Faculty ' themselves or under their in-
spection. The candidate for membership was ex-
amined with reference to these." He was also made
to do " stunts " — obliged to swim on the floor,
etc. Two tall " gendarmes," armed with musket
and bayonet, prodded him to the performance of
his duties.

The Med. Fac. meetings were suppressed in 1824,
and its anatomical collection dispersed, but the secret
activities of the society continued for about eighty
years, provoking sometimes wrath and sometimes
mirth. It conferred honorary degrees on the Sia-
mese Twins, the Sea Serpent, and Alexander I of
Russia. The Czar, taking the distinction seriously,

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

reciprocated by sending a very fine case of surgical
instruments, which was appropriated by the Corpora-
tion for the use of the medical professors. An old
catalogue of the society names the professorships
bestowed on its members — Professorships Bugo-
logiae, Craniologiae, Vitae et Mortis, and Intelli-
gentiae Generalis being among them.

Another convivial organization of this period was
the Navy Club. In the spring its marquee, " the
good ship Harvard," was erected near Divinity
Hall; the floor was divided into a quarter and a
main deck, each under the command of an admiral.
At the boatswain's whistle, the club was accustomed
to form in line in front of Holworthy and proceed
to its " ship," where it was understood to indulge
in some very peculiar naval manoeuvres.

The class of 1821 — the boisterous class which
had made Emerson their eighth choice as poet —
marched on their graduating day to Porter's Tav-
ern, where they sat down at two o'clock to " a fine
dinner." Caleb Cushing gave for a toast: "The
bonds of friendship, which always tighten when
they are wet." After this inspired sentiment the
feast waxed merry. " When we had all drunk our
skins full, we marched round to all the professors'
houses, danced round the Rebellion and Liberty

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THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN ERA

Trees, and then returned to the hall. A great many
of the class were half-seas over, and I had the pleas-
ure of supporting one of them. This was as hard
work as I ever desire to do. Many ladies came
to witness our dancing and were much scandalized
by the elevation of spirit which some exhibited.
We parted with more grief than any class I ever
saw, every one of us being drowned in tears."

In President Kirkland's administration under-
graduates were required to wear a uniform of black.
In 1829 a concession was made; the waistcoat had
to be either black or white. Charles Sumner per-
sisted in wearing one of buff color and was dis-
ciplined several times for this disobedience; he
insisted that it was nearly white enough to come
under the rule, and at last the Parietal Board
yielded to him in the controversy. Seventeen years
later, when he delivered his oration before the Phi
Beta Kappa, he wore a buff waistcoat. Sumner's
college bills, including tuition, rent, and care of
room, fuel, books, and fees, amounted to about
eight hundred dollars for four years. Two hundred
dollars a year probably represented the average scale
of expenditure among the students of the period.

Rebellions were of frequent occurrence; in April,
1823, there was a curious uprising among the seniors.

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

The names are shrouded In mystery, but this is
the story: X. was about to graduate at the head
of the class. Z. was believed — on what grounds
does not appear — to have told the faculty that
X., who was a student receiving college aid, had
spent in dissipation the funds that had been be-
stowed on him. X., on being questioned, denied
this, but the authorities deprived him of further
pecuniary assistance and of all academic honors.
The class, indignant and sympathizing with X.,
hissed Z. on his appearance in chapel. On account
of this demonstration, X., though he had not pro-
moted it in any way, was expelled. The next day,
when Z. appeared in chapel, his classmates rushed
upon him and threw him out. They did this on two
succeeding occasions; then Z. found it advisable
to withdraw from Cambridge. But because of their
disorderly and indignant proceedings, thirty-seven
seniors were expelled. Twenty years later they
were granted their degrees.

Class Day was celebrated very informally. Thus
George Whitney, of the class of 1824, wrote in
his diary: "Tuesday, 13 July. We part to-day.
After Commons, according to previous appoint-
ment we had a good prayer from Burnap in the
Senior Hall. We spent an hour or two after this in

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THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN ERA

calling on each other and bidding good-by to many
who would not even meet us at Commencement.
At half-past ten the class went in procession to the
Chapel and heard a very beautiful valedictory
oration from Newell and poem from George Lunt.'*

Whitney attended the Class Day exercises in
1829, when Oliver Wendell Holmes read the poem.
" He is both young and small in distinction from
most others," Whitney wrote, " and on these cir-
cumstances he contrived to cut some good jokes.
His poem was very happy and abounded in wit.
Instead of a spiritual muse, he invoked for his
goddess the ladies present and in so doing he sang
very amusingly of * his hapless amour with too tall
a maid.' "

In 1824 Lafayette visited Harvard. The streets
were decorated, he passed under triumphal arches
on his way from Boston, and the crowds gave him
such an ovation that he was several, hours late when
he at last arrived at the college. President Kirk-
land met him at the gate. When Edward Everett
in his oration spoke of " the noble conduct of our
guest in procuring a ship for his own transportation,
at a time when all America was too poor to offer
him a passage to her shores," he moved the audience
to tears.

127

CHAPTER IX

HARVARD UNDER QUINCY

KIRKLAND resigned the presidency in 1829
on account of ill health, and was succeeded by
Josiah Quincy, who had been for three terms mayor
of Boston. In Quincy's able and progressive admin-
istration, the Law School was reorganized and given a
home of its own, — in Dane Hall, — and the Astro-
nomical Observatory was established. But perhaps
Quincy's most important service to Harvard was in
repressing the spirit and habit of lawlessness which
his lenient predecessors had too long tolerated. At
this day it seems strange that the president of the
college should have felt compelled to assert that
students should be held amenable to civil authority
for offences against the law, " even though committed
within academic precincts."

But we have the testimony of Dr. Andrew P,
Peabody, then a tutor in Harvard: " The habits of
the students were rude, and outrages involving not
only large destruction of property, but peril of life —

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HARVARD UNDER QUINCY

as, for instance, the blowing up of public rooms in
inhabited buildings — were occurring every year.
Mr. Quincy was sustained by the Governing Boards,
but encountered an untold amount of hostility and
obloquy from the students, their friends, and the
outside public. He persevered, and gradually won
over the best public opinion to his view. While the
detestable practice of hazing was rife, crimes that
were worthy of the penitentiary were of frequent
occurrence, resulting in some cases in driving a
persecuted freshman from college; in many in-
stances, in serious and lasting injury; and once, at
least, in fatal illness. The usual college penalty
punished the parents alone. The suspended student
was escorted in triumph on his departure and his
return, and was the hero of his class for the residue
of his college life."

The Great Rebellion, as the undergraduate revolt
of 1834 was called, illustrated the disorderly tend-
encies with which Quincy had to cope. It began on
May 19; a freshman, a Southerner, refused to re-
cite in Greek when called on by the instructor, one
Dunkin. He not only refused to recite; he was in-
solent. President Quincy summoned him and told
him that he must apologize. The young Southerner
declared that he would rather withdraw from the

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

university; Quincy gave him the opportunity to
make that choice, and he withdrew. As he had
been well liked by upper classmen as well as by
freshmen, a popular movement to avenge him was
set on foot. Mobs tore Dunkin's room to pieces,
smashed his furniture, and broke his windows. They
set off torpedoes in chapel and promoted an almost
continuous disorder in recitations. Finally all the
sophomores but three went on strike and were sent
home. The juniors wore crape on their left arms
and burned Quincy in effigy. Rioting was inces-
sant, the breaking of windows and the smashing of
furniture continued. Legal proceedings for assault
and trespass were brought against some of the ring-
leaders. For the eight weeks from the 19th of May
to the end of the college year, the university work
was practically discontinued, " the students being
occupied with their various class meetings and the
instructors attending the frequent sessions of the
Faculty." In after years many of those who were
suspended for their foolishness received their de-
grees.

President Quincy was abrupt and rather harsh
in manner and seldom remembered a student's
name. But his feeling towards the undergradu-
ates was kindly, and he took endless pains, even in

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HARVARD UNDER QUINCY

small details, to improve their conditions. He com-
pelled the contractor of the commons to furnish
better food; he even imported tableware, porcelain,
and silver, stamped with the college arms, for use
in the commons. He was cordial and hospitable
in welcoming the students to his house; his popu-
larity increased as the students came to know him.
When Andrew Jackson visited the college. Presi-
dent Quincy was much distressed at having to con-
fer the degree of LL. D. on him; indeed all the fac-
ulty abhorred Jackson. " Preparations for a public
funeral — certainly for his — could not have been
made less cheerfully than ours for his welcome,"
writes Dr. Peabody. However, the affair went off
not so badly; the first scholar of the class delivered
a Latin address; President Quincy conferred the
degree in elegant Latin; the general replied, " prob-
ably in English," but in so low a tone that no one
could hear what he said; and he was then escorted
to the president's house, to a reception. " His whole
bearing, in the Chapel and in the drawing-room, by
its blended majesty and benignity, won for the time
the reverence and admiration of all who saw him."
The qualifying clause suggests that Dr. Peabody
certainly and President Quincy probably reverted
to their original views of Old Hickory.

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

Dr. John Snelling Popkin was the professor of
Greek under Quincy. " Who that ever saw him,"
writes Lowell, " can forget him, in his old age, like
a lusty winter, frosty but kindly, with great silver
spectacles of the heroic period, such as scarce twelve
noses of these degenerate days could bear? . . .
The son of an officer of distinction in the Revolu-
tionary War, he mounted the pulpit with the erect
port of a soldier and carried his cane more in the
fashion of a weapon than a staff, but with the point
lowered, in token of surrender to the peaceful pro-
prieties of his calling. Yet sometimes the martial
instincts would burst the cerements of black coat
and clerical neck-cloth, as once, when the students
had got into a fight upon the training-field, and the
licentious soldiery, furious with rum, had driven
them at point of bayonet to the college gates, and
even threatened to lift their arms against the Muses*
bower. Then, like Major GofFe at Deerfield, sud-
denly appeared the gray-haired professor, all his
father resurgent in him, and shouted: * Now, my
lads, stand your ground, you're in the right now!
Don't let one of them set foot within the College
grounds ! ' "

He liked to smoke, but " knowing that the ani-
mal appetites ever hold one hand behind them for

132

HARVARD UNDER QUINCY

Satan to drop a bribe in," he would never have two
cigars in his rooms at once, but walked daily to the
tobacconist's to purchase his single article of dissi-
pation. " Nor would he trust himself with two on
Saturdays, preferring (since he could not violate
the Sabbath even by that infinitesimal traffic) to
depend on Providential ravens, which were seldom
wanting in the shape of some black-coated friend
who knew his need and honored the scruple that
occasioned it."

For many years he lived on the second floor of
Holworthy, " the venerable Goody Morse cooking
his food, bringing it to him at the regular college
hours, and taking the most assiduous care for his
comfort." But finally, when he had to provide a
home in Cambridge for a widowed sister and two
nieces, he abandoned his comfortable bachelor's
lodgings, and took a house next door to a classmate
and lifelong friend. The two men used to hold long
conversations over the dividing fence, but neither
of them ever entered the other's house. Dr. Pea-
body dwells on Popkin affectionately in his remi-
niscences :

" In his recitation room Dr. Popkin sat by a table
rather than behind it, and grasped his right leg,
generally with both hands, lifting it as if he were

133

THE STORY OF HARVARD .

making attempts to shoulder it, and more nearly
accomplishing that feat daily than an ordinary
gymnast would after a year's special training. As
chairman of the parietal government, he regarded
it as his official duty to preserve order in the college
yard; but he was the frequent cause of disorder,
for nothing so amused the students as to see him in
full chase after an offender or dancing round a
bonfire; while it was well understood that as a de-
tective he was almost always at fault. . . . Yet
the students held him in reverence and at the same
time liked him. His were the only windows of
parietal officers that were never broken.'*

Although showing him this distinguished consider-
ation, the undergraduates made him at times the
victim of rude practical jokes. " Once while Dr.
Popkin was groping on the floor in quest of smothered
fire, in a room that had been shattered by an ex-
plosion of gunpowder, a bucket of water was thrown
on him." The students might take liberties with
him, but he stood on his dignity with others; on
overhearing a young man " of jaunty, dapper, un-
academic aspect " utter his nickname, he exclaimed :
"What right have you, sir, to call me Old Pop.^
You were never a member of Harvard College."

Dr. Jonathan Barber was the instructor in elo-

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HARVARD UNDER QUINCY

cution. " His great glory was the invention of a
hollow sphere, six feet in diameter, made of some
six or eight bamboo rods, which were its meridians,
and were crossed by an equator, by at least two
great circles besides, and by an adequate number of
small circles corresponding to parallels of latitude.
In this sphere the students stood to declaim, and
the circles by their various altitudes and intersec-
tions determined the gestures appropriate to each
specific mood of feeling or form of mental action/*
The merits of the contrivance were not appreciated;
it was discovered one morning suspended from a
barber's pole, and shortly after that affront Dr.
Barber abandoned his college work in elocution and
went about the country lecturing on phrenology.
The barber's pole was that in front of the shop that
Lowell remembered so pleasantly:

" The barber's shop was a museum, scarce second
to the larger one of Greenwood in the metropolis.
The boy who was to be clipped there was always
accompanied to the sacrifice by troops of friends,
who thus inspected the curiosities gratis. While the
watchful eye of R. wandered to keep in check these
rather unscrupulous explorers, the unpausing shears
would sometimes overstep the boundaries of strict
tonsorial prescription, and make a notch through

135

THE STORY OF HARVARD

which the phrenological developments could be
distinctly seen. As Michael Angelo's design was
modified by the shape of his block, so R., rigid in
artistic proprieties, would contrive to give an ap-
pearance of design to this aberration by making it
the key-note to his work, and reducing the whole
head to an appearance of premature baldness. What
a charming place it was, — how full of wonder and
delight! The sunny little room, fronting southwest
upon the Common, rang with canaries and Java
sparrows, nor were the familiar notes of robin, thrush
and bobolink wanting. A large white cockatoo
harangued vaguely, at intervals, in what we be-
lieved (on R.*s authority) to be the Hottentot lan-
guage."

Dr. Peabody has left a picturesque account of
the student's manner of life at this period:

" The feather bed — mattresses not having come
into general use — was regarded as a valuable chat-
tel; but ten dollars would have been a fair auction
price for all the other contents of an average room,
which were a pine bedstead, washstand, table, and
desk, a cheap rocking-chair and from two to four
other chairs of the plainest fashion. I doubt whether
any fellow student of mine owned a carpet. A
second-hand furniture dealer had a few defaced and

136

HARVARD UNDER QUINCY

threadbare carpets, which he leased at an extrava-
gant price to certain Southern members of the
Senior class; but even Southerners, though reputed
to be fabulously rich, did not aspire to this luxury
till the Senior year. Coal was just coming into use,
and hardly found its way into the college. The
students' rooms — several of the recitation rooms
as well — were heated by open wood-fires. Almost
every room had, too, among its transmittenda a can-
non-ball supposed to have been derived from the
arsenal, which on very cold days was heated to a red
heat and placed as calorific radiant on a skillet or
on some extemporized metallic stand; while at
other seasons it was often utilized by being rolled
downstairs at such time as might most nearly bisect
a proctor's night-sleep. Friction-matches — accord-
ing to Faraday the most useful invention of our
age — were not yet. Coals were carefully buried
in ashes over night to start the morning fire; while
in summer the evening lamp could be lighted only
by the awkward and often baffling process of stri-
king fire with flint, steel, and tinder box.

" The student's life was hard. Morning prayers
were in summer at six; in winter, about half an
hour before sunrise in a bitterly cold chapel. Thence
half of each class passed into the several recitation

137

THE STORY OF HARVARD

rooms in the same building — University Hall —
and three quarters of an hour later the bell rang for
a second set of recitations, including the remaining
half of the students. Then came breakfast, which
in the College commons consisted solely of coffee,
hot rolls, and butter, except when the members of a
mess had succeeded in pinning to the nether surface
of the table, by a two-pronged fork, some slices of
meat from the previous day's dinner. Between ten
and twelve every student attended another recita-
tion or a lecture. Dinner was at half-past twelve, —
a meal not deficient in quantity, but by no means
appetizing to those who had come from neat homes
and well ordered tables. There was another recita-
tion in the afternoon, except on Saturday; then
evening prayers at six, or in winter at early twi-
light; then the evening meal, plain as the breakfast,
with tea instead of coffee, and cold bread, of the
consistency of wool, for the hot rolls. After tea
the dormitories rang with song and merriment till
the study bell, at eight in winter, at nine in
summer, sounded the curfew for fun and frolic,
proclaiming dead silence throughout the college
premises.

" On Sundays all were required to be in residence,
not excepting even those whose homes were in

138

HARVARD UNDER QUINCY

Boston; and all were required to attend worship
twice each day at the college chapel. On Saturday
alone was there permission to leave Cambridge,
absence from town at any other time being a punish-
able offence. This weekly liberty was taken by
almost every member of college, Boston being the
universal resort; though seldom otherwise than on
foot, the only public conveyance then being a two-
horse stage-coach, which ran twice a day."

Commons, which had occupied rooms in Harvard
Hall, were transferred in 1815 to University. In
Harvard Hall, officers and graduates sat at a table
on a dais at the head of each room; seniors and
sophomores occupied the main floor of one room,
juniors and freshmen the main floor of the other.
" By this arrangement each pair of adjacent classes,
always supposed to hold relations of mutual an-
tagonism, were fed apart, and had different doors of
entrance and egress." The kitchen in the basement
of University was the largest in New England, and
an object of curiosity and interest to visitors. " The
students felt in large part remunerated for coarse fare
and rude service by their connection with a feeding
place that possessed what seemed to them world-wide
celebrity. They were not the only dependents
upon the college kitchen, but shared its viands with

139

THE STORY OF HARVARD

a half-score or more of swine, whose sties were close
in the rear of the building, and with rats of abnormal
size that had free quarters with the pigs."

Two or three of the professors took in boarders
at three dollars a week — wealthy Southerners pre-
sumably. These boarders were objects of suspicion
to their classmates; if one of them received any
college honor, " it was uniformly ascribed to undue
influence, catered for on the one side and exerted
on the other, in consequence of this domestic ar-
rangement."

The students were invariably hostile to the
faculty. " If a student went unsummoned to a
teacher's room, it was almost always by night.
It was regarded as a high crime by his class for a
student to enter a recitation room before the ringing
of the bell, or to remain to ask a question of the
instructor; and even one who was uniformly first
in the class-room would have had his way to Coven-
try made easy. In case of a general disturbance,
the entire Faculty were on the chase for offenders
— a chase seldom successful; while their unskilled
manoeuvres in this uncongenial service were wont
to elicit, not so much silent admiration, as shouts of
laughter and applause.

" The recitations were mere hearings of lessons,

HARVARD UNDER QUINCY

without comment or collateral instruction. They
were generally heard in quarter sections of a class,
the entire class containing from fifty to sixty mem-
bers. The custom was to call on every student in
the section at every recitation."

At this lime the college yard was unenclosed and
extended only a few feet behind University Hall —
only far enough in fact to afford quarters for the
pigs. The chapel exercises were held in University
Hall, and at them as at the commons, seniors and
sophomores were kept apart from juniors and fresh-
men. In front of the pulpit was a stage, for the
chapel room was also the room for public declama-
tions and exhibitions. At daily prayers a professor
kept watch over the congregation from a sort of
raised sentry box and noted down the name of any
one guilty of a misdemeanor.

The entrance examinations — all oral — began
at six o'clock in the morning and lasted all day, with
but a half-hour intermission for luncheon. " Each
of the thirteen College officers took a section and
passed it to the next, and so on until it had gone the
entire round.'* It may well be believed that this
matriculation day was not a time of festivities;
but it was far otherwise with Commencement Day.

" The entire Common, then an unenclosed dust

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

plain, was completely covered on Commencement
Day and the night preceding and following it with
drinking stands, dancing booths, mountebank shows
and gambling tables; and I have never heard such
a horrid din, tumult, and jargon of oath, shout,
scream, fiddle, quarrelling and drunkenness as on
those two nights. By such summary methods as but
few other men could have employed, Mr. Quincy
at the outset of his presidency swept the Common
clear; and during his entire administration the
public days of the College were kept free from rowdy-
ism. . • •

" Pious citizens of Boston [before 1776] used to send
their slaves to Commencement for their religious in-
struction and edification. But the negroes soon found
that they could spend their holidays more to their
satisfaction, if not more to the good of their souls,
on the outside than in the interior of the meeting-
house. At length Commencement came to be the
great gala day of the year for the colored people
in and about Boston, who were by no means such
quiet and orderly citizens as their representatives
now are, while their comparative number was much
greater."

In 1836 the Rev. John Pierce entered this observa-
tion in his diary: " Be it noted that this is the first

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HARVARD UNDER QUINCY

Commencement I ever attended in Cambridge in
which I saw not a single person drunk in the Hall
or out of it. . . . There were the fewest present I
ever remember.*'

Class Day, which, as we have seen, had only a
few years before been a day of innocent literary
exercises, .had also become an occasion for disorderly
revelry. The class of 1834 treated all comers to
iced punch. " In 1836," writes Lowell, " the
College janitor, in vain protesting, yet not without
hilarious collusion on his own part, was borne in
wavering triumph on a door, the chance-selected
symbol of his office.** Of these first Class Day
orgies, Lowell writes : " Crowds gathered to witness
these anarchic ceremonies. The windows which
commanded the scene were bursting with heads,'
and in as much request as formerly those which gave
a near view of the ghastly tree at Tyburn.**

But in 1838, the year when Lowell was rusticating
at Concord and so was unable to read his class poem,
there was a reform; from that time on drunkenness
ceased to be the most distinguishing feature of
Class Day. For a number of years each class planted
an ivy shoot on Class Day, and the orator delivered
his oration over it. But as the ivy always died,
the custom of planting it was abandoned altogether;

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

and the Ivy Oration, though not discontinued, ac-
quired what was in the circumstances an appro-
priately humorous character, and was assigned to the
reputed wit of the class.

The long vacation was in the winter, and con-
tinued to be until 1869. Professor Ticknor in 1825
wrote: "The longest vacation should ^appen in
the hot season, when insubordination and miscon-
duct are now most frequent, partly from the in-
dolence produced by the season. There is a reason
against this, I know — the jxjverty of many students
who keep school for a part of their subsistence."

One of the greatest hot weather excitements oc-
curred in August, 1834. A Protestant mob had
burned down a Roman Catholic chapel in Charles-
town. The rumor spread through Cambridge that
in retaliation the Papists meant to set fire to
the Harvard Library. Students and graduates
gathered to defend it, and sentinels stationed them-
selves with muskets at the windows. Night came
on, and a horseman galloped up to announce that
one thousand armed Irishmen were marching to
Cambridge. Excitement and precautions were re-
doubled — but it was no doubt the horseman*s
little joke; the column of armed and angered Fenians
never appeared.

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HARVARD UNDER QUINCY

The most memorable event of Quincy's adminis-
tration was the bicentennial celebration of the found-
ing of the college, which was held on September 8,
1836. A pavilion one hundred and fifty feet by
one hundred and twenty was built in front of Uni-
versity Hall and covered with white canvas. Its
pillars were wreathed with evergreens and flowers;
streamers of blue and white floated down from the
top of the tent. All the college buildings were
decorated in a similar manner. Early in the morn-
ing the roads from Boston to Cambridge were the
scene of unusual activity. The townspeople turned
out along the way, booths were set up, coaches and
carriages rolled by continuously. At nine o'clock
the alumni and invited guests, to the number of
fifteen hundred, assembled in University Hall.
At ten o'clock the procession formed, headed by
one member of the class of 1774. It passed through
the gate between Massachusetts Hall and Harvard
Hall and entered the Congregational Church. There
" Fair Harvard," written for the occasion by the
Rev. Samuel Gilman of Charleston, South Carolina,
was sung for the first time. President Quincy
made a two-hour address, which was followed by
a prayer, hymn, and benediction. Then the pro-
cession marched through the common, back into

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

the yard, and entered the pavilion. Here Edward
Everett presided at the dinner and delivered a
characteristic and abundant oration, overflowing
with classical allusions. Forty toasts were pro-
posed, each one in the stately language of the period,
and nearly as many speeches, among them one by
Daniel Webster, were delivered — all of a consider-
able length and not one with the slightest trace of
humor. In fact, the speech-making lasted until
eight o'clock in the evening.

Pedantry was in the air of Cambridge in those
days; such words as " the feast of reason and the
flow of soul " really seemed to the people of the
time to express very happily an agreeable idea;
and an occasion which to an audience of the present
would have been a monumental affliction held our
solemn forefathers rapt and attentive and provided
them with a lifelong, pleasant memory.

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CHAPTER X

ANTE - BELLUM DAYS

IN President Quincy*s administration, sharp
restrictions were still imposed upon the under-
graduate's freedom. The college rules of 1832 or-
dained that " no student shall be absent from the
University a night in term time, or go out of the
town of Cambridge at any time . . . without per-
mission from the President,'* and that " every
student is required on the Lord's Day and the evening
preceding to abstain from visiting and from re-
ceiving visits, from unnecessary walking, and from
using any diversion, and from all behavior incon-
sistent with the sacred season." With these and
with other cramping regulations, and with practi-
cally no athletics to absorb nervous and physical
energy, college life often seemed irksome; frequent
outbursts of disorder and drunkenness were the
methods by which undergraduates sought relief
from monotony.

Some letters written by Francis Parkman, of the

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

class of '44, portray the diversions of a young gentle-
man of the period :

" Here I am, down in Divinity Hall (!) enjoying
to my heart's content that otium cum dignitaie
which you so affectionately admire, . . . Do you
not envy me my literary ease? — a sea-coal fire —
a dressing-gown — slippers — a favorite author;

— all set off by an occasional bottle of champagne,
or a bowl of stewed oysters at Washburn's? This
is the cream of existence. To lie abed in the morn-
ing, till the sun has half melted away the trees and
castles on the window-panes, and Nigger Lewis's
fire is almost burnt out, listening meanwhile to
the steps of the starved Divinities as they rush shiv-
ering and panting to their prayers and recitations

— then to get up to a fashionable breakfast at eleven

— then go to lecture — find it a little too late, and
adjourn to Joe Peabody's room for a novel, conver-
sation, and a morning glass of madeira." One hardly
recognizes in this sybarite the hero of the Oregon
Trail!

Again: "Joe got up one of his old-fashioned
suppers, on a scale of double magnificence, inviting
thereunto every specimen of the class of '44 that
lingered within an accessible distance. . . . The spree
was worthy of the entertainment. None got drunk,

148

.^^-

ANTE-BELLUM DAYS

but all got jolly; and Joe's champagne disappeared
first;, then his madeira; and his whiskey punch
would have followed suit, if its copious supplies

had not prevented The whole ended with

smashing a dozen bottles against the Washington
(elm?) and a war-dance with scalp yells in the middle
of the common, in the course of which several night-
capped heads appeared at the opened windows of
the astonished neighbors."

Champagne, madeira, whiskey punch, and only
an air of jollity! But another passage recording
an incident of Parkman's freshman year convinces
us that these young men were not superhuman:

" It was a very hot night. We had opened our
windows in search of air when there was a knock
on the door and ten or twelve seniors came in. It
was an immensely impressive circumstance. We
regarded the seniors with awe and reverence. Still
it was not above their dignity to haze a couple
of harmless and callow freshmen. They closed the
windows and took out cigars and began to smoke
their cigars to smoke us out. We bore it for a while;
then the air became thick, and we began to think
we had had enough of it. Suddenly one of the
seniors sprang up and rushed to the door and asked
for the key. The door was opened; he went out,

149

THE STORY OF HARVARD

left his supper on the doorstep, and went to his
T^jfjin, followed by all the rest."

In 1843 a small gj'mnasium was provided for the
use of the students, — the first official recognition
of the importance of physical exercise. Athletics
began to play an important part in the college life,
but even through the fifties it was a very informal
and unorganized kind of athletics. A crude sort
of football was played on the Delta, where Memorial
Hall now stands. Robert Gould Shaw at the be-
ginning of his freshman year, in 1856, described one
of the contests:

" Last Monday we had our six annual football
games, Freshmen kicking against Sophomores. In
the last three games the Juniors help the Freshmen,
and the Seniors help the Sophomores. We beat
the third game alone, a thing which has happened
only three times since the University was founded.
The Sophomores generally beat all six games be-
cause they know the ground and know each other.
As I think a description of the whole affair would
amuse you, I will give it to you.

" At half past six we went to the Delta, and in a
few minuXcs the whole Sophomore class streamed
into the field at one end, and about as large a class
of Freshmen into the other, and stood opposite

150

ANTE-BELLUM DAYS

each other about a hundred yards apart, like two
hostile armies. There we stood cheering and getting
up our courage until the ball was brought. It was
received with great cheering and hurrahing, and
handed over to the Sophomores, who had the first
kick by rights. After they had kicked once, they
waited until our champion, [Caspar] Crowninshield,
had one kick, and then rushed in.

" They knew that we were a large class and had a
good many big fellows, so they determined to
frighten us by hard fighting; and if anything was
calculated to frighten fellows not used to it, it was
the way in which they came upon us. They rushed
down in a body, and, hardly looking for the ball,
the greater part of them turned their attention to
knocking down as many as they could, and kicked
the ball when they happened to come across it.
It was a regular battle, with fifty to seventy men on
each side. It resembled more my idea of the hand-
to-hand fighting of the ancients than anything
else. After the first game, few had their own hats
on, few a whole shirt. In the beginning I rushed into
the middle with the crowd, but after that I kept
among fellows of my own size on the outskirts.
My experience in the middle was this: before I had
been there more than a second, I had got three fear-

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

ful raps on the head, and was knocked down, and
they all ran over me after the ball, which had
been kicked to another part of the field. Then I
picked myself up, as did a great many other fellows
lying about me, and looked for my hat among about
twenty others and a good many rags. I found it some
time afterwards serving as football to a Sophomore
during the entr^ acte. That was Monday, and to-
day is Friday, but my head is not entirely well yet.
I got a good many blows which I didn't feel at all
till the next day. A good many of our fellows were
more badly hurt, because they had pluck enough
to go into the thick of it each time; once was enough
for me. It was fine to see how little some of them
cared for the blows 4:hey got. After the Juniors
and Seniors came in, there must have been two
hundred on the ground. Of the last three games,
we beat one and one was voted a drawn game. This
is a much more important thing than one would
think, because it is an established custom; and
our having beaten is a great glory, and gives the
other classes a much higher opinion of us than
they would otherwise have. They talked about it
quite amicably the next day. Several of the Sopho-
mores and Seniors, who were both opposed to us,
came over to our side that same evening and con-

152

ANTE-BELLUM DAYS

gratulated us upon having beaten them, because it
was such an unusual thing. Now we play football
every evening, but all the classes mix up, and there
is little or no fighting/'

In 1845 President Quincy resigned after what had
been in many ways the most memorable and pro-
gressive administration that any president had
given to Harvard University. His successor was
Edward Everett, who held the office for only three
years. The admired orator of the period was not
well qualified to fulfil the president's duties. His
ideas of discipline were those of the pedagogue of
the primary school, his sense of personal dignity
was too acute, his lack of humor and of human under-
standing was conspicuous.

Mr. Joseph H. Choate, of the class of '52, has re-
called an illuminating instance of President Ever-
ett's insistence upon petty formalities. Mr. Choate
was a freshman of only one week's standing when
he received a summons from the president's secre-
tary. " Mr. Choate," said the secretary, " the
president has directed me to inform you that he
observes with great regret that you passed him in
Harvard Square yesterday without touching your
hat. He trusts that this offence will never be re-
peated."

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

There is a delightfully naive account by Dr.
Andrew P. Peabody of the lecture on Washington
with which Everett toured the country; for the
humorous light that it throws upon the taste
of the period as well as upon two of Har-
vard's worthies, it may be introduced into these
pages :

" That lecture was the most marvellous master-
work of rhetorical art and skill of which I ever had
any knowledge. Washington's character, in its
massive simplicity and perfectness, afforded very
little hold for popular eloquence. Mr. Everett, fully
aware of this, grouped around the honored name a
vast number and an immense diversity of men, in-
cidents, objects of admiration in nature and curi-
osity in art, scientific facts, classical allusions,
myths of the gods of Greece, — the greater part
of them not in themselves illustrative of his theme,
but all of them pressed into its service and forced
into an adaptation that was made at the time to
appear natural and obvious. A catalogue of the
materials used in that lecture would seem as heter-
ogeneous as the contents of a country variety shop,
and a man of ordinary genius would have won only
ridicule in the attempt to bring them together. But
Mr. Everett compressed them into perfect and

154

ANTE-BELLUM DAYS

amazing unity, and rendered them all subsidiary to
the name and fame of Washington; while, when
the lecture was over, it was impossible to recollect
what bearing on the character of our first President
was assigned to the greater part of them. I first
heard the lecture in Boston. A few weeks after-
ward he delivered it in Portsmouth, N. H., where
I then lived and shared with the friend at whose
house he stayed the charge and pleasure of his hos-
pitable reception. We took him to the family
mansion where Tobias Lear, Washington's private
secretary, was born, and where Washington, on
his Northern tour during his presidency, was a
guest, and introduced him there to an old lady,
Mr. Lear's niece, who had in her parlor the very sofa
on which Washington had sat, holding her on his
knee, and a sampler which she had wrought with
a long lock of his white hair which he gave her.
Mr. Everett, without seeking time for special prep-
aration, so worked the Lear house, its occupant,
and its furniture into the appropriate part of his
lecture that the whole story seemed absolutely
inseparable from what preceded and what followed,
and as if it had been written in its place in the be-
ginning. A short time afterward I went to Bruns-
wick to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa address, and he

155

THE STORY OF HARVARD

was going to deliver his Washington lecture in
the evening. I was his fellow guest at the house of
his cousin, Hon. Ebenezer Everett. It was in-
cidentally said at table that * all Bath ' was com-
ing up to hear him, arrangements having been made
for a special train. A short time previously the
wife of a Bath ship-master disabled by paralysis, —
though herself in a condition that might have ex-
cused her from active duty, — had taken command
of her husband's ship, in the harbor of San Francisco,
and brought it home in good order to Bath. That
story Mr. Everett incorporated into his lecture,
entering with the utmost delicacy into the cir-
cumstances that rendered the achievement the more
heroic and noteworthy; and there was no portion
of the lecture which seemed more closely adapted
to the subject or which the hearers would have missed
more had they heard the discourse again elsewhere.
Yet, when Mr. Everett had gone to his room, we
found it impossible to recall the process by which
he had dovetailed this story into his lecture, or
the precise bearing which it had on the merit and
fame of Washington."

Dr. Peabody remained for many years to delight,
entertain, and instruct the youth of Harvard;
but Edward Everett seemed to excite irritation

156

ANTE-BELLUM DAYS

and levity rather than respect, and in 1849 he re-
signed the presidency of the college.

Jared Sparks, the . author and editor of volu-
minous biography, succeeded him. He was not
a man under whose leadership a university would
be likely to make any notable advance; but he
was a substantial scholar and a kindly human be-
ing. The other college authorities were disposed to
maintain the severe standards of discipline set by
his predecessor, under whom " the omission of a
necktie in the early darkness of morning pray-
ers incurred for the offender an admonition from
the chairman of the parietal board; the throwing
of a snowball was reported to the faculty; the
question was raised whether the making of the
snowball without throwing it did not deserve
censure; and the blowing of a horn was a capital
crime."

But President Sparks often intervened to pro-
tect the students from the extremes of such harsh
doctrine. " Oh, let the boys alone; they will take
care of themselves," was his frequent admonition
to an over-zealous officer.

The chapel was the theater of ingenious and secret
undergraduate activities. To prevent the bell from
being rung was the ambition of many college gener-

157

THE STORY OF HARVARD

ations. It was turned up and filled with water,
which froze; sulphuric acid was poured into it; the
rope was cut; the keyholes of the locked chapel
doors were plugged up with wax; on one occasion
the bell-tongue was removed, the doors leading to
the belfry were screwed up, and the heads of the
screws were filed off. But the resourceful janitor
broke his way in and punctually rang the bell by
beating it with a hammer. In the matter of bell
ringing, the college authorities always triumphed.
But in Sparks's administration the Bible was suc-
cessfully stolen from the chapel and sent by express
to the Librarian of Yale, who returned it to Har-
vard. On the fly leaf was written: ^^ Hoc Biblum
raptutn vi a pulpite Harvard Coll. Chapelli facultati
Yali ab Harv. Coll. undergraduatibus donatur. Co-
veres servamus in usum Chessboardi. Pro HelUr
SkelUr Club:'

Notwithstanding Sparks's amiability, he had a
certain stubbornness and clung to his prejudices.
He had no admiration for Kossuth, who was en-
gaged in a triumphant tour of the country and was
making for Cambridge. The faculty wished to do
special honor to the Hungarian patriot, and as he
would be on hand for the usual spring " exhibition,"
they voted to hold it in the First Parish Church,

158

ANTE-BELLUM DAYS

where Commencements were held, instead of in the
small college chapel. President Sparks said: " It
is for you, gentlemen, to hold the exhibition where
you please. I shall go to the chapel in my cap and
gown at the usual hour." The faculty reconsidered
their vote; and the projected Kossuth celebration
fell flat.

On account of physical infirmity President Sparks
resigned in 1853; James Walker, professor of nat-
ural religion and moral philosophy, was elected in
his place. In matters of discipline he was even
more tolerant than Sparks had been, and. he suc-
ceeded in eliminating the absurd code that had pre-
vailed under Everett. He was a celebrated preacher;
his chief claim to distinction lay in his sermons.
He resigned in i860; Cornelius C. Felton, the
most eminent Greek scholar of the university,
Succeeded him, but died in less than two years.
Then came Thomas Hill, professor of mathematics;
his term likewise was short, for he retired in
1868.

A letter written by Lowell to President Hill in
1863 gives a criticism of the college yard at this
period :

"... Something ought to be done about the
trees in the college yard. That is my thesis, and

159

THE STORY OF HARVARD

my corollary is that you are the man to do it. They
remind me always of a young author's first volume
of poems. There are too many of 'em and too
many of one kind. If they were not planted in
such formal rows, they would typify very well
John Bull's notion of * our democracy,' where every
tree is its neighbor's enemy, and all turn out scrubs
in the end, because none can develop fairly. Then
there is scarce anything but American elms. I
have nothing to say against the tree in itself. I have
some myself whose trunks I look on as the most
precious baggage I am responsible for in the journey
of life, but planted as they are in the yard, there's
no chance for one in ten. If our buildings so
nobly dispute architectural pre-eminence with cotton
mills, perhaps it is all right that the trees should
become spindles, but I think Hesiod (who knew
something of country matters) was clearly right
in his half being better than the whole, and no-
where more so than in the matter of trees. There
are two English beeches in the yard which would
become noble trees if the elms would let 'em alone.
As it is, they are in danger of starving. Now, as
you are our Kubernetes, I want you to take the
'elm in hand. We want more variety, more group-
ing. We want to learn that one fine tree is worth

160

ANTE-BELLUM DAYS

more than any mob of second rate ones. We want
to take a leaf out of Chaucer's book and understand
that in a stately grove every tree must * stand well
from his fellow apart.' A doom hangs over us in the
matter of architecture, but if we will only let a
tree alone it will build itself with a nobleness of
proportion and grace of detail that Giotto himself
might have envied. Nor should the pruning as
now be entrusted to men who get all they cut off,
and whose whole notion of pruning accordingly is,
* axe and it shall be given unto you.' Do, pray,
take this matter into your own hands — for you
know how to love a tree — and give us a modern
instance of a wise saw. Be remembered among your
other good things as the president that planted the
groups of evergreens for the wind to dream of the
sea in all summer and for the snowflakes to roost
on in winter."

The last adjuration failed to move Dr. Hill;
no groups of evergreens have flourished in the yard.
And curiously enough the president whom future
generations will connect with tree-planting is he
who bears the name of Lowell.

Yet President Hill deserves to rank as one of
the progressives — to use a word that had not
then achieved currency. It was in his administra-

161

THE STORY OF HARVARD

tion that the idea of elective studies was first vigor-
ously advocated in Harvard College. It remained
for his successor to give the principle its widest
application.

162

CHAPTER XI

HARVARD IN THE WAR

THE South had always been friendly to Harvard,
and before the struggle over slavery became
acute, Harvard was sympathetic with the South.
To Harvard came some of the best representatives
of the Southern aristocracy. The idea of slave-
holding as expressed by thesie young men was
patriarchal rather than iniquitous. Harvard un-
dergraduates. Harvard professors accepted the ex-
istence of slavery in the South Nvithout particularly
questioning the justice or wisdom or desirability
of it. Their feeling was that it was an economic
necessity, and that the rights of property must
be respected.

The Abolitionists had no following at Harvard.
Lowell, graduating in 1838, sent his class poem
in from Concord, where he had been rusticated for
neglect of studies; it ridiculed the Abolitionists,
and the ridicule was popular. Wendell Phillips,
while he was in college and even while he was in

163

THE STORY OF HARVARD

the Law School, had not been inflamed and in-
spired by their propaganda. Sumner in 1848 made
speeches for the Free Soil party throughout Massa-
chusetts, and came to Cambridge; there he was
hissed. Lowell was a late convert to the Free Soil
cause; but Ticknor, Everett, Sparks, Felton, Mot-
ley, Parkman, and Dana were among the distin-
guished Harvard men who stood firmly on the other
side. The professors in the Law School defended
the Fugitive Slave Law, and out of the hundred
students under them, only six were opposed to it.
Nevertheless, as the crisis of Secession drew
near, the Union sentiment of the college swept away
conservative inclinations. In 1861 all the Southern-
ers went home. In April, on the day after Lincoln
made his appeal for volunteers, the seniors raised
a transparency on a tree in front of Holworthy.
One side bore the legend, " The Constitution and
the Enforcement of the Laws," the other, " Harvard
For War." The undergraduates assembled and
cheered; that evening rockets were set off; the
next morning from every window in Massachusetts
Hall, then a sophomore dormitory, a flag was flying.
Governor Andrew called on Harvard for volunteers
to guard the arsenal at Watertown. Military
drills were held daily on the Delta; students

164

Appleton Chapel

HARVARD IN THE WAR

rushed to enroll themselves in volunteer companies
for defence. For a time the authorities attempted
to check the martial enthusiasm; but when the
magnitude of the struggle became apparent, they
withdrew their opposition. Eighty-one men were
graduated in the class of '6i ; fifty-one of them bore
arms for the Union. The rooms in the college yard
were scenes of grave debate between young men
earnestly seeking to decide where their duty lay.
Often it happened that of two room-mates, one
went to the war, the other stayed behind. There
were sword-presentations to those who departed:
sometimes the young soldier, returning on fur-
lough, brightened the yard with his holiday uni-
form; on Class Day and Commencement there
would be a sprinkling of undergraduates and recent
graduates who were already seasoned veterans of
the war.

Thirteen hundred and eleven Harvard men

served in the Union army and navy. One hundred
and sixty-seven were killed or died of disease. Two
hundred and fifty-seven Harvard men fought on
the Confederate side; sixty- four of them were
killed or died of disease.

The story of Harvard College is in a sense the
story of her sons; the brightest and the most

165

THE STORY OF HARVARD

touching page in her history is that which records
their services in the Civil War. Therefore I will
make no apology for sketching here a few of those
whose deeds and whose death cast a luster on the
university they loved.

Everett Peabody was one of the leading scholars
of the class of '49; he was also a big, athletic
fellow, full of animal spirits, brimming with energy,
fond of pranks; he was rusticated for making a
bonfire on the steps of University Hall. In spite
of this he was graduated with honors and had a
part at Commencement. He went West, became an
engineer, and built railroads in Ohio, Illinois, and
Missouri; before he was thirty he was regarded
as the best field engineer in all that country. He
lived chiefly in a " boarding car " at the unfinished
extremity of a new railroad track; he was in the
habit of dating his letters home from " Boarding
Cars."

" The aforesaid cars," he wrote in a letter that
showed his characteristic liveliness of spirit, " are
now on an embankment about forty feet high, and
the snow stretches away to the north and south.
The trees are black and dreary looking, and the
wind goes howling by. Bitter cold it is, too, out-
side. But I have finished my frugal repast of

166

HARVARD IN THE WAR

bread and butter and do not purpose exposing my
cherished nose to the night air again. Vague rem-
iniscences come back to me of ancient sleigh-rides,
of pretty faces snuggling close to your side, of
muffs held up before faces to keep off the wind, and
gentle words. There is fun enough, and wit and
nonsense enough, out here; but after all it is hard
and angular and lacks entirely the refining influence
which womankind infuses into man's life. But the
weird sisters weave, and Atropos sits ready. Let
her sit."

In the spring of 1861 Pea body took an active part
in the convention that kept Missouri in the Union.
Soon after that he was commissioned colonel of
the 13th Missouri Infantry. He wrote to his brother:
" Good-by, old fellow. I have a sort of presenti-
ment I shall go under. If I do, it shall be in a man-
ner that the old family shall feel proud of it."

Within a month the ill-fated regiment encoun-
tered a vastly superior force at Lexington, Missouri;
and after stubbornly holding its position in an
eight-day fight, it was at last surrounded and cap-
tured. Peabody was wounded in the foot. A
couple of months later he was exchanged, and, still
on crutches, set about reorganizing his regiment,
which now became the 25th Missouri. In a letter

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

written at this time he says: " I am a nondescript
animal, which I call a triped, as yet, but I trust
in a short time to be on foot once more. — You
in Massachusetts, who see your men going off
thoroughly equipped and prepared for the service,
can hardly conceive the destitution and ragged
condition of the Missouri volunteers. If I had a
whole pair of breeches in my regiment at Lexing-
ton, I don't know it; but I learned there that
bravery did not depend on good clothes."

In March, 1862, he was in command of the lead-
ing brigade in General Prentiss's division, at Shi-
loh. Just before the battle, he felt that the army
was in danger of being surprised, and asked Prentiss
for permission to send out a scouting party. Pren-
tiss delayed answering and finally ignored the re-
quest; Peabody therefore sent out a scouting party
on his own responsibility. This party met the Con-
federate column advancing, just as Peabody had
feared, and fell back, skirmishing. Peabody had
his brigade in line to receive the attack; the rest of
the division was unprepared and was thrown into
confusion. Had Peabody instead of Prentiss held
the division command, the ultimate victory of the
Union troops might have been less dearly bought.
The right of the division was captured ^n masse;

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HARVARD IN THE WAR

Peabody rode gallantly to the front to rally his
brigade against the overwhelming attack, was
shot through the head, and killed instantly.

Wilder Dwight, of the class of '53, was an earnest
and somewhat introspective yoyth. He kept a
diary in college. " I am somewhat of a * dig,' I
suppose," he reflected in his freshman year; " and
though the character is rather an ignominious one
in college, it is in so good repute elsewhere and among
wiser persons than freshmen or even sophomores
that I shall endeavor always to deserve the title.
Natural geniuses, that is, lazy good scholars, are
few and far between. I shall, therefore, estimate
myself as a very common sort of a person; and as
I desire to excel, I shall choose the way which seems
to promise success." This serious-minded young
moralist, whose diary is filled with abstracts of
sermons and reflections induced by them, wonder-
fully escaped developing into a prig. After gradua-
tion, he went through the Law School, then spent
more than a year in study abroad, and after that
established himself as a lawyer in Boston. Soon
he was known as one of the ablest of the younger
men practising at the bar.

At the outbreak of the war, Dwight determined
to raise a regiment. He got subscriptions to guar-

169

THE STORY OF HARVARD

antee necessary expenses; he went to Washington
and obtained from the Secretary of War the spe-
cial authority required for enlistment. The regi-
ment that he helped to recruit was the Second
Massachusetts, wrhich, officered very largely by
Harvard men, went through some of the most des-
perate fighting of the war. From that time on,
as his mother wrote, " his history was that of the
regiment.'' He was commissioned major; in
June, 1862, he was promoted to be lieutenant-
colonel. He was an admirable officer in camp and
on the field; he looked after the health and comfort
of his men and was indefatigable in his kindness
to them. His fiery-hearted zeal for accomplishment,
for action, underwent severe trials; the regiment
was attached to the Army of the Potomac under
McClellan; Dwight chafed at the enforced idle-
ness. " I had rather lose my life to-morrow in a
victory than save it for fifty years without one! " he
wrote. And again: " I presume I love life and home
and friends as much as any one; but I should sooner
give them all up to-morrow than to have our regi-
ment go home empty. ... If you have any prayers
to give, give them all to the supplication that the
Second Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers may
find a field whereon to write a record of itself. Do

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HARVARD IN THE WAR

not spend your days in weakly fearing or regretting
this or that life, — lives whose whole sweetness and
value depend upon their opportunities, not upon
their length."

But there was to be no lack of opportunities for
the Second Massachusetts. Soon it was in the
thick of the fighting. It covered Banks's retreat
in May, 1862; D wight, lingering to assist two
wounded soldiers, fell into the enemy's hands.
After a week he was paroled. His regiment had
given him up for dead; when his men saw him ap-
proaching, they rushed forward and welcomed him
with joyous enthusiasm. He told them who of their
comrades were in prison in Winchester, and who
were wounded. Then he said triumphantly: " And
now do you want to know what the Rebels think
of the Massachusetts Second? * Who was it am-
buscaded us near Bartonsville? ' a cavalry officer
asked me. * That was the Massachusetts Second,'
I replied. An officer of Rebel infantry asked me
who it was that was at the run near Bartonsville.

* That was the Massachusetts Second,' said I.

* Whose,' asked another officer, * was the battery so
splendidly served, and the line of sharpshooters
behind the stone wall, who picked off every officer
of ours who showed himself? ' * That was the Massa-

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

chusetts Second/ said I. On the whole, the Rebels
came to the conclusion that they had been fighting
the Massachusetts Second, and that they did not
care to do it again in the dark."

Under parole, he chafed at being out of action.
In the battle of Cedar Mountain his regiment was
engaged and sustained heavy losses; Dwight's
mortification over his absence was keen. But that
day his exchange was effected, and he joined his
men in time to take part in Pope's inglorious retreat.
He wrote bitterly: " We want soldiers^ soldierSy
and a general in command. Please notice the words,
all of them."

At the battle of Antietam, the regiment was drawn
up under the shelter of a fence; Dwight walked
along it, directing the men to keep their heads down
out of reach of the enemy's fire. Soon he fell mor-
tally wounded. His regiment was ordered to re-
treat, and men were detailed to carry him, but his
pain was so intense that he could not be moved;
he was left lying where he fell. A little later, young
Rupert Saddler, a private of his command, crept
out to him at great risk. Afterwards Saddler
wrote this statement: " I saw a man with his head
lying on a rail. I felt that it was the Colonel, and
I hurried to him. I gave him a drink of water,

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HARVARD IN THE WAR

and asked him where he was wounded. He said
his thigh-bone was shattered. I saw his arm was
bleeding. I asked, was it serious? He said, * It's
a pretty little wound.' I saw two of our men
coming, and I called them over. The Rebels saw
them and began firing. Colonel Dwight wanted us
to go back to the regiment. Said he, * Rupert, if
you live, I want you to be a good boy.' I wanted
to bind up his wounds, but he said it was no use. He
gave me a paper he had been trying to write on,
and the pencil; the paper was covered with his
blood."

It was a note to his mother, sending her his love
and saying good-by.

Saddler and the two other men lifted him and
carried him, under fire, into a corn-field. General
Gordon rode up to him, and Dwight saluted. Bul-
lets were whistling overhead. " I must have you re-
moved from here," said General Gordon. " Never
mind me," Dwight answered. " Only whip them."
He was carried to the field hospital and then to
Boonesborough, where he died.

Charles Russell Lowell followed Wilder Dwight
at Harvard by a year. Born in 1835, he was one
of the youngest men in the class of '54. He was
a man such as appears in a college once or twice in a

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

generation. He was the first scholar of the class
throughout his college course. Ardent in mind and
temper, handsome, athletic, he was distinguished
not only by his love of learning, but also by his
ruggedness of character, his moral steadiness and
strength. In every way he appears to have been
the acknowledged leader of the class. As a scholar
he showed the greatest versatility and the most
enthusiastic acquisitiveness; he mastered languages
and sciences with equal zeal. In his valedictory
oration on " The Reverence Due from Old Men to
Young," there is a passage that shows the quality
of his thought and expression, even at the age of
nineteen:

" Mere action is no proof of progress; we make
it our boast how much we do, and then grow blind
to what we do. Action here is the Minotaur which
claims and devours our youths. Athens bewailed
the seven who yearly left her shore; with us scarce
seven remain, and we urge the victims to their fate.

" Apollonius of Tyana tells us in his Travels
that he saw * a youth, one of the blackest of the
Indians, who had between his eyebrows a shi-
ning moon. Another youth named Memnon, the
pupil of Herodes the Sophist, had this moon when
he was young; but as he approached to nian's estate,

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HARVARD IN THE WAR

its light grew fainter and fainter, and finally van-
ished.' The world should see with reverence on
each youth's brow, as a shining moon, his fresh ideal.
It should remember that he is already in the hands
of a sophist more dangerous than Herodes, for that
sophist is himself. It should watch, lest, from too
early and exclusive action, the moon on his brow,
growing fainter and fainter, should finally vanish,
and, sadder than all, should leave in vanishing no
sense of loss."

Although thus deprecating the young man's
eagerness for action, Lowell himself exhibited the
characteristic that he deplored. Immediately after
graduation he entered the iron mill of the Ames
Company at Chicopee, Massachusetts, as a common
workman. Already he had ideas for improving the
condition of laboring men, and he was not unwilling
to make a first-hand study of it. A year later he
went to take an important executive position with
the Trenton Iron Company of New Jersey. He had
been there but a short time when he was attacked
by hemorrhage of the lungs. He had to abandon his
work and his hopes; for two years he travelled abroad
for his health. When he came back in 1858, he was
still too unwell to resume his former occupation;
he went West and became treasurer of the Burling-

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

ton and Missouri River Railroad. In the two years
that he was in Burlington his health improved, and
his reputation for efficiency was established. In
i860 he was invited to undertake the management
of the Mount Savage Iron Works at Cumberland,
Maryland, and accepted the offer, seeing in it an
opportunity ultimately to put into practice his
plans for improving the lot of the workingman.

But on April 20, 1861, Lowell got the news of the
attack made the day before in Baltimore on the
Sixth Massachusetts. He resigned the management
of the iron works and applied for the commission
of second lieutenant in the regular army. Of this
application he said : " Military science I have ab-
solutely none, military talent I am too ignorant yet
to recognize; but my education and experience in
business and in the working of men may, if wanted,
be made available at once in the regular army.
Of course I am too old to be tickled with a uniform.'*
— He was only twenty-six !

In June he wrote that he would not think of be-
coming a soldier, " were it not for a muddled and
twisted idea that somehow or other this fight is
going to be one in which decent men ought to engage
for the sake of humanity^ He was commissioned,
not second lieutenant, but captain, in the Third,

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HARVARD IN THE WAR

afterwards the Sixth, U. S. Cavalry. During the
summer he was engaged in recruiting in different
parts of the country. The regiment spent the
autumn and winter in drilling and preparing for
the field. Lowell felt that he had as much to learn
as any of the raw recruits; he worked zealously.
His colonel pronounced him the best officer appointed
from civil life that he had ever known and gave him
command of a squadron.

In March, 1862, the regiment joined the Army of
the Potomac. Lowell's younger brother, James
Jackson Lowell, who was the first scholar in the class
of '58, and, like Charles, generous, warm-hearted,
and beloved, was also in McClellan's army — first
lieutenant in the 19th Massachusetts Infantry. He
was mortally wounded on June 30 at the battle
of Glendale, and died on the Fourth of July. Charles
Lowell wrote: "The little fellow was very happy;
he thought the war would soon be over, that every-
thing was going right."

That summer Lowell was detailed as an aide to
McClellan; at Antietam, bearing orders for Sedg-
wick's division and meeting it as it was retreating
in confusion, he rode along the line, drove back
and rallied the men, and checked what threatened
to be a rout. For the gallantry and the quality of

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

leadership that he thus exhibited, McClcllan chose
him to present to the President the trophies of the
campaign; and Lowell bore to Washington the
thirty-nine colors taken from the enemy.

In the autumn he was ordered to report to Gov-
ernor Andrew of Massachusetts, to organize the
Second Massachusetts Cavalry, of which he was
appointed colonel. The work of organization kept
him in Boston until the spring of 1863. The appoint-
ment of Robert Gould Shaw to command the 54th
Massachusetts, the negro regiment, deprived him of
one of his best officers, but he heartily approved
the appointment. " It is very important that the
regiment should be started soberly and not spoilt
by too much fanaticism," he wrote. " Shaw is not
a fanatic." About this time Lowell became engaged
to Shaw's sister, whom he married in the autumn.

While he was organizing the Second Cavalry, a
serious mutiny broke out at the barracks; the men
attacked their officers with drawn swords. Lowell
shot and killed the ringleader in the act of slashing
at a lieutenant. He immediately reported to the
Governor, who said: " I need nothing more; Colonel
Lowell is as humane as he is brave."

In May he left Boston with his regiment and went
to Virginia, where for some time he endeavored to

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Metnori»l Hall

HARVARD IN THE WAR

check the incursions of Mosby and his troopers.
Mosby wrote afterwards that of all the Federal
commanders opposed to him Colonel Lowell was
the one for whom he had the highest respect.

Passages from letters written at this period reveal
the young commander's growing maturity:

" A man is meant to act and to undertake, to
try to succeed in his undertakings, to take all means
which he thinks necessary to success: but he must
not let his undertakings look too large and make a
slave of him. Still less must he let the means. He
must keep free and grow inUgrally.

" I feel every day, more and more, that a man
has no right to himself at all; that, indeed, he can
do nothing useful unless he recognizes this clearly.
We were counting over the * satisfactory ' people
of our acquaintance the other day, and very few
they were. It seems to me that this change in public
affairs [the war] has entirely changed my standard,
and that men whom ten years ago I should have
almost accepted as satisfactory now show lamentably
deficient. Men do not yet seem to have risen with
the occasion; and the perpetual perception of this
is uncomfortable. It is painful here to see how
sadly personal motives interfere with most of our
officers' usefulness. After the war how much there

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

will be to do, and how little opportunity a fellow
in the field has to prepare himself for the sort of
doing that will be required! It makes me quite
sad sometimes; but then I reflect that the great
secret of doings after all, is in seeing what is to be
done.

" Yesterday we took a little fellow only sixteen
years old. He had joined one of these gangs [bush-
whackers] to avoid the conscription, which is very
sweeping. He told us all he knew about the company
to which he belonged; but he was such a babe that
it seemed mean to question him."

In July, 1864, Lowell was given the command of a
brigade containing, besides his own regiment, rep-
resentatives of every cavalry regiment in the serv-
ice. With this patchwork following, which he soon
welded with wonderful skill into a strong fighting
organization, he joined Sheridan's Army of the
Shenandoah. On August 16, Sheridan began to
retire down the Valley, Lowell's brigade protecting
his rear; and from the sixteenth till the thirty-first
the brigade was fighting every day. On the twenty-
sixth Lowell led a brilliant attack, in which his
Massachusetts regiment captured seventy-four men.
Sheridan then showed his admiration of Lowell's
leadership by appointing him to the command of the

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HARVARD IN THE WAR

Reserve Brigade, the best cavalry brigade in the
service. It consisted of three regiments of regular
cavalry, one of artillery, and Lowell's own volunteer
regiment — the regiment that had mutinied at the
outset and that his skilful handling had now brought
to this perfection.

At Winchester on September 19, Lowell with a
captain and four men charged a Confederate gun
and captured it — though the gun was fired, the
horses of the two officers killed, and the captain's
arm torn off. " A little more spunk," said Lowell
in commenting on the incident, " and we should
have had all their colors."

Thirteen horses were shot under him in as many
weeks. But he was more than the daring and dash-
ing cavalryman. " In whatever position Lowell was
placed," said a fellow officer, " it always seemed to
those around him that he was made for just that
work." So it had been in college, where he had
mastered languages and sciences with equal ease and
equal zeal. He was young, and he looked even
younger than he was. But his men, who had now
learned to know him, adored him and followed him
with enthusiasm and with confidence.

He wrote of Sheridan: " I like him immensely.
Whether he succeeds or fails, he is the first general

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

I have seen who puts as much heart and time and
thought into his work as if he were doing it for his
own exclusive profit. He works like a mill-owner or
an iron-master, not like a soldier. Never sleeps,
never worries, is never cross, but isn't afraid to come
down on a man who deserves it."

His own ripening ideals appear in a letter that he
wrote to Major Henry L. Higginson, then disabled:
" I hope that you have outgrown all foolish ambitions,
and are now content to become a * useful citizen. '
. . . Don't grow rich; if you once begin, you will
find it much more difficult to be a useful citizen. . . •
There, what a stale sermon Pm preaching! But
being a soldier, it does seem to me that I should
like nothing so well as being a useful citizen. Well,
trying to be one, I mean. I shall stay in the service,
of course, till the war is over, or till Via disabled;
but then I look forward to a pleasanter career. I
believe I have lost all my ambitions. I don't think
I would turn my hand to be a distinguished chemist
or a famous mathematician. All I now care about
is to be a useful citizen, with money enough to buy
bread and firewood, and to teach my children to
ride on horseback and look strangers in the face, —
especially Southern strangers ! "

On October 15, Sheridan left his army intrenched

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HARVARD IN THE WAR

near Cedar Creek and went to visit Front Royal
and other points in the Valley. In the dawn of the
nineteenth, the Confederates surprised the left of
the line and drove it headlong down the Valley —
until at noon Sheridan came galloping from Win-
chester. Meanwhile Lowell had led his Reserve
Brigade from the right of the field to the left, a
distance of three miles, and was covering the re-
treat. He established himself at the extreme left
and maintained his position against a greatly su-
perior force. Riding back and forth along the line
of his skirmishers, he was a conspicuous mark for
the sharpshooters on the roofs of the village. At
one o'clock a spent ball struck him in the right breast,
over his bad lung, and though the bullet did not
break the skin, the blow caused internal hemorrhage
and deprived him of breath and voice. For an hour
and a half he lay on the ground. Then came Sheri-
dan's order to begin an advance all along the line —
the advance that was destined to give the Union
troops the victory. " I feel well now," Lowell
whispered, and insisted on being helped into his
saddle that he might take part in the charge. He
gave his orders through a member of his staff; his
brigade swept forward into the thickest of the fight,
he at the head of it, and in a few moments he fell

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

mortally wounded. He lived long enough to know
that the Union troops had won the battle — not
long enough to receive his commission as brigadier-
general, signed the day he died.

Less illustrious, yet no less heroic is the story of
Charles Brooks Brown, of the class of '56. He was
one of eleven children; the family, who lived in
Cambridge, were in humble circumstances. He
worked his way through college — kept school in
winter, acted as monitor, wrote sermons or theo-
logical discourses for religious newspapers, novel-
ettes for weekly papers, conundrums for prize offers.
After graduation, he studied law and then went to
Springfield, Illinois, to practise. There he became
known to Abraham Lincoln; he made speeches for
Lincoln in the campaign of 1858. It was chiefly
because of what Brown told him of the place that
Lincoln decided to send his son to Harvard.

After a year and a half in Springfield, Brown came
back to Boston. On the morning of April 17, 1861,
he left his home in Cambridge to go to his office,
but learning that a Cambridge company of volun-
teers was starting for the South that day, he joined
them. That night he was on a steamer bound for
Fortress Monroe — a private in the Third Massa-
chusetts. He served with his company at Fortress

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HARVARD IN THE WAR

Monroe during the three months' campaign, re-
ceived his discharge July 22, 1861, and came home.

But after Bull Run he could stay at home no
longer. He looked about for a regiment likely soon
to get into action, and in August enlisted as a private
in the Nineteenth Massachusetts. He soon became
a sergeant.

He had chosen his regiment well, for the Nine-
teenth Massachusetts saw plenty of fighting. At
the battle of Fair Oaks in June, 1862, Brown was
wounded in the leg. He fought on for some time
after being struck; then, using his gun as a crutch,
he hobbled from the field. He was sent to the U. S.
General Hospital at David's Island, New York,
and was detained there until October 15. In No-
vember he rejoined his regiment, shortly before
the battle of Fredericksburg. The regiment had
been presented with a new stand of colors, to re-
place those that had been sent home stripped and
torn by bullets. At Fredericksburg the new colors
had fourteen holes shot through them, and were
carried by eleven different men, nine of whom were
killed or wounded within an hour. Brown was the
seventh man to seize them, was wounded in the
head, refused to give up the colors, and rushing out
in advance of the line, staggered and fell, driving

185

THE STORY OF HARVARD

the color-lance into the earth. The wound that
to his comrades had seemed mortal proved not to be
serious, and in a few days he was on duty again.

The next spring, though he was, as he wrote,
" in full enjoyment of the blessings of fever and ague
and rheumatism," he refused to accept the surgeon's
advice and go on the sick list. At the battle of
Chancellorsville he volunteered for dangerous service
and performed it. After the battle, against his
protestations, he was sent to the hospital at Chest-
nut Hill, Philadelphia. He was restless at being
absent from the regiment, but he wrote to con-
gratulate a brother on not being drafted, for he
thought that in sending three sons to the war the
family were doing their share.

In November, 1863, he rejoined his regiment. In
December he had to decide whether or not to re-
enlist. He had been in practically continuous serv-
ice since the very outbreak of the war, had been twice
wounded, was broken in health, and was a soldier
in a regiment of such gallant reputation that it
was always sure to be sent into the thickest of the
fight. With his ability, education, and opportuni-
ties. Brown could easily have obtained a commission
in another regiment; he could easily have obtained
an honorable discharge. But he resolved to stay

186

HARVARD IN THE WAR

with the regiment until the end of the war and to
win a commission in it or not at all. So he re-en-
listed in the ranks.

Just as the campaign in the Wilderness began,
he received an appointment as first lieutenant; he
put the document in his pocket, and still as a private
went into the bloody fighting of that terrible cam-
paign. On May 12, 1864, leading his company in
Hancock's charge, at Spottsylvania Court-House, he
was struck by a shell.

He knew that his wounds were mortal; he drew
from his pocket his unused commission as lieutenant,
now stained with his blood, and a photograph of the
girl to whom he had become engaged during his
month's furlough after re-enlistment; he asked
the comrades who came up to send them home with
the news of his death. His brother James was
wounded in the same battle and died the same day.
The girl to whom Brown was engaged was pros-
trated, fell ill of consumption, arid died six months
later with his name on her lips.

Strong Vincent, '59, of Erie, Pennsylvania, was
big, handsome, and popular — one of the marshals
of his class. After graduation, he read law in Erie.
At the first call for volunteers he enlisted in the
Wayne Guards and married immediately the girl

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

to whom for some time he had been engaged. His
wife accompanied him to Pittsburg, where the
Wayne Guards remained during the three months
of their enlistment. Then Vincent assisted in
raising the Eighty-third Pennsylvania and was
made lieutenant-colonel of the regiment. He was
dangerously ill when the battle of Gaines' Mills be-
gan, in which more than half his regiment were killed
or wounded. The colonel and the major were both
killed. Hearing this, Vincent rose from his bed,
mounted a horse, and put himself at the head of his
men. His example inspired them, but soon he
reeled from his horse; he was put into an ambulance
and then sent on a sick-transport down the James
River and up to New York. Finally he was taken
home to Erie; but on October i he rejoined his
regiment as its colonel. At Fredericksburg he was
in command of a brigade. He was made president
of a general court-martial, and was offered the
position of judge-advocate general of the Army of the
Potomac, but he declined the honor, preferring
active service with the troops.

At Gettysburg, again commanding a brigade, he
was sent to seize Little Round Top, and to hold it
and the ravine between it and Big Round Top.
His disposition of his troops was most skilful.

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HARVARD IN THE WAR

Standing on a huge boulder from which he might
survey and direct operations, a target for all the
guns of the attacking force, he was mortally wounded.
The appointment of brigadier-general was sent to
him the next day, but did not reach him before he
died.

Edward Gardner Abbott and Henry Livermore
Abbott, brothers and members of the class of i860,
both met chivalrous deaths. Edward Abbott,
captain in the Second Massachusetts, was killed
at Cedar Mountain while exposing himself in order
to steady his men. Henry Abbott, second lieu-
tenant in the Twentieth Massachusetts, was shot
through the arm at Glendale, but went on fighting,
and fought through the next day at Malvern Hill.
With his company of sixty men he led his regiment
when it cleared the main street of Fredericksburg;
thirty-five of his sixty fell under the Confederates'
terrific fire. At Gettysburg the Twentieth again
lost heavily; at the end of the battle Abbott, then
major, found himself in command. In the battle
of the Wilderness he was mortally wounded; dying,
he directed that all the money he left should be used
for the relief of widows and orphans of the regi-
ment.

Robert Gould Shaw, also of the class of '60, had

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

grown up a rather timid, very sensitive and affec-
tionate boy. He was fond of music and of sketching.
In college he was an active member of the Pierian
Sodality, an organization devoted to music. He
took no rank as a scholar — never stood in the
first half of his class.

In April, 1861, he marched with the Seventh New
York to Washington. The call for the Seventh was
for only thirty days; at the end of that time he
applied for and obtained a commission as second
lieutenant in the Second Massachusetts. Almost
immediately he saw hard fighting. Of the battle
of Cedar Mountain he wrote: " Goodwin, Cary,
Choate, and Stephen Perkins [all college mates]
were all quite ill, but would not stay away from the
fight. Choate was the only one of the four not
killed. Goodwin couldn't keep up with the regi-
ment; but I saw him toiling up the hill at some dis-
tance behind with the assistance of his servant.
He hardlv reached the front when he was killed.
All our officers behaved nobly. Those who ought
to have stayed away didn't. It was splendid to
see those sick fellows walk straight up into the
shower of bullets as if it were so much rain; men
who, until this year, had lived lives of perfect ease
and luxury."

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HARVARD IN THE WAR

After the battle of Antietam, having gone about
among the wounded, he wrote: "There are so
many young boys. and old men among the Rebels
that it seems hardly possible that they can have
come of their own accord to fight us; and it makes
you pity them all the more as they Ke moaning on
the field." And later he wrote: " This life gradually
makes us feel that, so far as a man himself is con-
cerned, he may as well die now as a few years hence;
but I never see one killed without thinking of the
people he leaves at home; that is the sad part of it."

January 30, 1863, Governor Andrew wrote to
him as follows: " I am about to organize in Massa-
chusetts a colored regiment as part of the volunteer
quota of this State, — the commissioned officers to
be white men. I have to-day written to your father,
expressing to him my sense of the importance of
this undertaking and requesting him to forward to
you this letter, in which I offer you the commission
of colonel over it. The lieutenant-colonelcy I have
offered to Captain Hallowell of the 20th Massa-
chusetts regiment. It is important to the organi-
zation of this regiment that I should receive your
reply to this offer at the earliest day consistent with
your ability to arrive at a deliberate conclusion on
the subject."

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

Shaw hesitated; he distrusted his abilities, he liked
the service with the Second Massachusetts among
officers and men who were his friends, and he was no
doubt reluctant to leave it for the command of col-
ored troops and the social ostracism to which such
an exchange would subject him in some quarters.
But the governor's request seemed to impose on him
a duty; he accepted the commission, went to Boston,
and threw himself heart and soul into the work of
organizing and drilling the Fifty-fourth Massachu-
setts. On May 2, he was married; on May 28 he
sailed from Boston with his regiment, and his bride
of a little more than three weeks never saw him
again.

With him went as second lieutenant young Cabot
Jackson Russel, of the class of '65. The first act in
which the negro regiment had to participate after
landing on Port Royal Island was the burning of the
defenceless town of Darien, Georgia. Shaw obeyed
the orders of his superior commanding officer in this
matter most unwillingly, and young Russel wrote:
" This is not the sort of work I came for, nor do I
believe it good work, but it is not for me to criti-
cize."

On Saturday, July 18, General Strong, commanding
the Union troops in front of Fort Wagner, offered

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HARVARD IN THE WAR

Shaw the post of honor in the suicidal assault. Now
this is what Shaw and his regiment had passed
through in the two preceding days: Thursday,
July 1 6, they were engaged in a fight on James
Island — the first fighting that they had been in
— and beat back the enemy gallantly. That evening
at nine o'clock they left James Island and marched
to Cole's Island, which they reached at four in the
morning; it rained, thundered, and lightened all
night. Upon their arrival at Cole's Island they lay
round all day — a day that Shaw described in his
last letter: "There is hlardly any water to be got
here, and the sun and sand are dazzling and roast-
ing us." They had no food except the hardtack
and coffee in their haversacks. From eleven o'clock
Friday night until four o'clock Saturday morning,
again under a pelting rain, they were being put on
board a transport from a boat that took out about
fifty at a time. They breakfasted on what was left
of their hardtack, and they had no other food all
that day. The transport left Cole's Island at six
in the morning and landed the troops at Pawnee
Landing at half-past nine. Thence they marched
to the point opposite Morris Island, arriving at
about two in the afternoon. A steamer took them
across the inlet; they reached General Strong's

193

THE STORY OF HARVARD

headquarters at six o'clock. Immediately General
Strong offered them the brunt of the attack.

Shaw was not twenty-six years old. But he was
no longer the timid youth who had shrunk from the
football scrimmages on the Delta. He formed his
regiment in line of battle, and when at half-past
seven the order was given, he led the charge. A
hundred yards from the fort, the negroes faltered
under the scathing fire; but Shaw, waving his sword
and shouting, "Forward, Fifty-fourth!" rallied
them, and they followed him devotedly. He was
.himself one of the first to scale the walls. On the
ramparts he was shot dead and fell inside the
fort.

Brigadier-General Haygood, the Confederate com-
mander, made this statement: " I knew Colonel
Shaw before the war, and then esteemed him. Had
he been in command of white troops, I should have
given him an honorable burial. As it is, I shall
bury him in the common trench, with the negroes
that fell with him."

This was done; and the Confederate general
thus provided for the body of his former friend what
Thomas Hughes justly termed " the grandest
sepulchre earned by any soldier of the century."

Robert Shaw was not the only white officer who

194

HARVARD IN THE WAR

earned that burial. Here are the words in which
one who knew Cabot Russel described his end:

" The darkness of night hung over the sufferings
of that sacrifice where the noblest and the best,
appointed to lead black soldiers to death and prove
that they were men, had obeyed the order. When
our troops fell back from an assault in which they
were not supported, hundreds of dead and wounded
marked how far they had gone. Among those who
did not return was Captain Russel. A ball struck
him in the shoulder and he fell. Captain Simpkins
offered to carry him off. But the boy had become a
veteran in a moment, and the answer was, * No,
but you may straighten me out.' As his friend, true
to the end, was rendering this last service, a bullet
pierced his heart, and his dead body fell over the
dying."

Then some of Russel's soldiers wished to bear
him from the field. But the young officer's last
order was: " Do not touch me; move on, men, fol-
low your colors."

So they left him. He was not quite nineteen.

On July 21, 1865, Commemoration Day was
celebrated at Harvard College in honor of those
students and graduates who had served in the war.
General Meade was present and received the degree

195

THE .STORY OF HARVARD

of LL. D. Among trie younger men of Harv*iri who
were there was Major-General William Francis Bart-
lett, of the class of *62. He had lost a leg at the siege
of Vorktown; a few months later, returning to the
front at the head of the regiment of which he had
been made colonel, he had ridden down Broadway
with his crutch strapped to his back; he had been
wounded at Port Hudson and in the Wilderness
and before Petersburg; and now at the gathering
before which Lowell read his Commemoration Ode,
the president called upon him in these words:
" I introduce to you Major-General William Francis
Bartlctt, — his heart is left."

196

CHAPTER XII

PRESIDENT ELIOT's ADMINISTRATION

CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT was chosen
President of Harvard by the Corporation in
September, 1868, when he was thirty-four years
old. The votaries of a classical education dis-
trusted the young professor of chemistry; the Over-
seers felt that an older man was needed, and twice
vetoed the election. But the Corporation stood
firm, and in May, 1869, the Overseers accepted
their choice.

In his inaugural address, the young president did
not conciliate those who had opposed him. It was
a departure from the usual suave and colorless
disquisition produced for such an occasion; there
was in it none of the harmless pedantry or platitu-
dinous verbiage which in the middle of the century
was wont to pass as denoting scholarship. The crisp
and pungent declarations of the new president
startled many of his hearers. " The endless con-
troversies whether language, philosophy, mathe-

197

THE STORY OF HARVARD

matics, or science supply the best mental training,
whether general education should be chiefly literary
or chiefly scientific, have no practical lesson for us
to-day. This University recognizes no real antago-
nism between literature and science, and consents
to no such narrow alternatives as mathematics
or classics, science or metaphysics. We would have
them all, and at their best."

That speech was the memorable utterance of a
strong,- sane optimist, a clear-thinking, courageous
leader. It was in no idle spirit of vaunting prophecy
that he declared, " The future of the University
will not be unworthy of its past."

During the last fifty years the material growth
in America has been in all ways incalculable. Ham-
lets have become cities, deserts have been made
fertile, the forests that once seemed a forbidding
barrier to progress now have to be cherished in the
name of progress, the web of industry is spun in
places and across spaces that must have seemed un-
conquerable to the men of half a century ago. That
Harvard University should have grown with the
times was inevitable; but its growth has been greater
than that of almost any standard for comparison.
Playgrounds have been usurped for buildings, and
wider playgrounds have been laid out; students and

198

PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADMINISTRATION

officers have increased many times in number, re-
sources have been augmented enormously, wealth
has been poured into Harvard's lap; in 1869 her
capital was about two and a quarter millions; now
her income is about two and a quarter millions.

With all that, Harvard is not a rich university —
in the sense, at least, of having a comfortable sur-
plus after all legitimate needs are provided for.
She spends worthily every year all that she has, and
she always needs more. Her professors and in-
structors are not highly paid. If they have no
other sources of revenue than their salaries, they
must live with a careful eye to the present and an
anxious one to the future. Perhaps President Eliot
was never deeply moved by their pecuniary diffi-
culties. To his ascetic and devoted spirit, asceticism
and devotion were required of the teachers of
youth, and it mattered little if they were prescribed
by poverty instead of being elective. The cost to
Harvard of each student's education is not covered
by the student's tuition fee. This fact is, in one
way, a burden that the teachers must bear, and for
the most part they bear it cheerfully.

It is the teachers, not the buildings or the athletic
victories, that make a college; and at no time since
President Eliot took charge of the university has

199

THE STORY OF HARVARD

Harvard had cause to fear for her primacy in scholar-
ship. The names of Agassiz and Gray and Shaler,
of Norton and Child and Lowell, of Goodwin and
Lane and James, of Dunbar and Hill dim the luster
of many others that are minor only because of the
distinguished juxtaposition that they enjoy. And it
is to President Eliot's genius for securing the best
— and eliminating the second-rate — that Harvard
owes a teaching staff inferior to none in the English-
speaking world.

The Law School and the Medical School had been
pursuing their comfortable and independent courses.
Each institution had its own treasury, in conse-
quence felt self-sufHcient, and was as indisposed as
it was unaccustomed to receive interference from
any outside authority. When President Eliot
made it manifest that he proposed to take these
organizations under his control, their officers were
indignant and dismayed.

But within three years the Medical School had
turned its finances over to the college treasurer,
and had submitted to a complete revision of its
courses and to an alteration of its term time and
vacation. Henceforth, it was a docile member of
President's Eliot's empire.

So too with the Law School. Here instruction had

200

PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADMINISTRATION

been irregular and desultory, no examinations were
held, and even the good instructors were handi-
capped by the lack of system. President Eliot
found in the new dean. Professor Langdell, an
able and enthusiastic coadjutor. The funds were
turned over to the common treasury; students were
obliged to live in Cambridge, to attend recitations
regularly, and to undergo examinations; the stand-
ard of instruction was raised and the method of it
altered. Singe its reorganization, the Law School
has been one of the most flourishing and important
departments of the university. ^

The other schools are all, to a greater or less degree,
monuments to President Eliot; and by the college
itself his influence has been as directly felt. The
elective system, although it had been introduced in
a qualified form many years before he took office,
will always be, for Harvard men, associated with
Eliot's name. Its scope was broadened, new courses
were continually being established, the methods
of instruction were revised and improved — the aim
constantly being to make the student think for him-
self and of his own independent interest pursue the
truth to its original sources. This ideal of education
was admirably adapted to the needs of those under-
graduates who were not immature, indolent, or in-

201

^ • . i

THE STORY OF HARVARD

different, and who came to Harvard meaning to
work as well as to play. For the more irresponsible
members of the college society, it was perhaps less
fruitful than the old-fashioned daily recitations and
prescribed curriculum might have been. A certain
number in every class became proficient in selecting
courses that exacted the minimum amount of effort
for a passing mark; for many years the visitor to
Harvard was sure to express surprise at the number
of young men wfio elected to study Semitic; and
there were courses in Fine Arts and Geology which
were taken — quite plausibly too — with the idea
that to sit under the distinguished professors who
gave them was, without making further effort, to
acquire a liberal education. That there was con-
siderable abuse of the privileges and opportunities
conferred by the elective system there is no doubt;
and the present administration is undertaking to
prevent this by curtailing the freedom of choice in
the first year and by requiring of each student a
coherent plan of studies instead of permitting him
to nibble here and there. The effort is to make
every undergraduate, as President Lowell has said,
" know a little of everything and one thing well."
President Eliot's large-minded liberality affected
' the system of discipline as well as that of instruction,

202

■fc *

t »

^*^ ! w- ** '^ * - * * •

PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADMINISTRATION

In 1886, chapel attendance was made voluntary,
and in other respects much freedom of movement
was permitted to the student who maintained a good
standing in his work.

In May, 1865, at a meeting of graduates held in
Boston, a committee had been appointed to report
on the subject of a permanent memorial commemora-
ting the Harvard men who had fought and died for
the Union. This committee reported that a building
in which statues, portraits, and commemorative
tablets might be placed and which would be a " suit-
able theatre or auditorium for the literary festivals
of the College " should be constructed. Funds were
quickly raised, and on October 6, 1870, the corner-
stone of Memorial Hall was laid, but not until
Commencement, 1874, was the building ready for
occupancy. Its great dining-hall and its kitchens
have furnished a satisfactory solution of the prob-
lem of commons which had vexed so many adminis-
trations. Its lofty, vaulted transept with the stained-
glass windows and the marble tablets whereon are
recorded one hundred and thirty-six names —
recent researches show that there should be one
hundred and sixty-seven — is the threshold that
the senior crosses on Commencement Day to pass
out into the world. Its auditorium, Sanders Theatre,

203

THE STORY OF HARVARD

has been the scene of many distinguished gatherings
and has heard the voices of many illustrious men.
Perhaps the most memorable occasion that Sanders
Theatre has known was that which marked the
climax of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
of Harvard College.

The celebration lasted for three days, November
6, 7, and 8, i886. The first day, Saturday, was
Undergraduates' Day; the programme provided
for undergraduate literary exercises in the morning,
athletic sports in the afternoon, and a torchlight
procession in the evening. The first two features
of this programme were successfully carried out,
but the torchlight procession had to be postponed
on account of rain until the evening of the last day.
It had somewhat the character of a pageant. On a
dray was a model of the Harvard statue, supported
by burlesque representations of a butcher, a cooper,
and a grocer — these having been the father and two
step-fathers of John Harvard, who had eventually
received their accumulated fortunes. The group
was labeled: "Johnnie Harvard's Pa's." An old
printing-press was carried on a wagon and served
by an Indian. Then came a squad of Puritans,
with sugar-loaf hats and knee-breeches; after them
the old Washington Corps, with blue, swallow-tailed

£04

PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADMINISTRATION

coats and white small-clothes. There were various
impersonators of old Harvard worthies, — Hollis,
Stoughton, Holworthy, and others. The ancient
Navy Club, " in which the laziest man was high
admiral," was represented; " this supreme slug-
gard," as the historian of the occasion calls him,
lay on a red divan, dressed in admiral's uniform.
The procession paraded for two hours and finally
ended at Holmes Field, where there was a display
of fireworks — the climax being a representation
of John Harvard standing inside a gorgeous temple.

The second day of the celebration, Sunday, was
Foundation Day, the anniversary of the passage of
the vote by the General Court granting four hundred
pounds for the establishment of the college. Com-
memoration exercises were held in Appleton Chapel.

On the morning of Monday, the eighth. Alumni
Day, two thousand graduates assembled in the
yard. President Cleveland arrived, escorted by the
Lancers. His carriage drove up to Gore Hall,
where the chief marshal and President Eliot received
him. The church bells rang and batteries on the
Common fired a salute. Then the procession formed
and marched to Sanders Theatre. Lowell was the
orator of the occasion, and Holmes the poet. In his
address, Lowell, one of the conservatives, questioned

205

THE STORY OF HARVARD

the wisdom of the elective system, humorously: " Is
it indeed so self-evident a prftposition as it seems to
many, that * You may * is as wholesome' a lesson for
youth as * You must? ' Is it so good a fore-school-
ing for Life, which will be a teacher of quite other
mood, making us learn, rod in hand, precisely
those lessons we should not have chosen? I have,
to be sure, heard the late President Quincy (clarum
et venerabile nomen) say that if a young man came
hither and did nothing more than rub his shoulders
against the College buildings for four years, he would
imbibe some tincture of sound learning by an in-
voluntary process of absorption. The founders
of the College also believed in some impulsions
towards science communicated a tergo, but of
sharper virtue, and accordingly armed their presi-
dent with that ductor dubitantium which was wielded
to such good purpose by the Reverend James Bowyer
at Christ's Hospital in the days of Coleridge and
Lamb. They believed with the old poet that whip-
ping was * a wild benefit of nature,' and could they
have read Wordsworth's exquisite stanza,

" * One impulse from a vernal wood
Can teach us more of man,
Of moral evil and of good
Than all the sages can,'

206

PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADMINISTRATION

they would have struck out * vernal ' and inserted
* birchen ' on the margin."

That this passage met with approval deeper than
that of laughter in some of the audience ciannot be
doubted; but the greatest applause came when the
orator welcomed Dr. Mandell Creighton, " who
brings the message of John Harvard's College,
Emmanuel. The welcome we give him could not be
warmer than that which we offer to his colleagues;
but we cannot help feeling that in pressing his hand
our own instinctively closes a little more tightly, as
with a sense of nearer kindred.'*

After the oration and the poem and the conferring
of honorary degrees, there was an Alumni banquet
in Memorial Hall. The speech-making was of a
somewhat livelier character than that which had
distinguished the bicentennial celebration. Presi-
dent Cleveland expressed his congratulations, am-
bassadors from other institutions paid their trib-
utes, and Dr. Creighton made a happy response to
Lowell's compliment of the morning when he said:
" Ten years ago Emmanuel College celebrated the
three hundredth anniversary of its foundation in
some such way as you are doing to-day. On that
occasion two distinguished alumni of Harvard —
Professor Lowell and Professor Norton — no less by

207

THE STORY OF HARVARD

the dignity of their presence than by the eloquence of
their speech almost succeeded in converting our
festival into a celebration of Harvard College in its
ancestral soil of England."

208

CHAPTER XIII

UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES

WITH the increase in freedom that marked
President Eliot's administration there was
an increase in the variety of activities attractive
to undergraduates. In the first half of the century,
the competitive spirit had found .almost no outlet
except in scholarship; social intercourse with the
world outside the college walls had hardly existed;
there had been no athletics; and there had been
few students with purses well enough filled to com-
mand luxuries.

Undergraduate activities of the recent and con-
temporary generations may be classified as three-
fold — literary, social, and athletic.

A hundred years ago literary avocations were more
generally associated with the name of culture than
they are to-day; the students of Harvard, trained
to express themselves in the classical and orotund
style of the period, desired to see, and to have their
friends see, their compositions in print. So, not-

209

THE STORY OF HARVARD

withstanding the smallness of the public that could
be counted on to support it, the Lyceum^ a monthly
periodical, was launched in 1810. Edward Everett
and Samuel Gilman, the author of " Fair Harvard,"
were among its editors. It lasted less than a year;
it perished with this admonition from the disillu-
sioned editors: " The legacy which we leave to our
collegiate posterity is our advice that they enjoy all
those exquisite pleasures which literary seclusion
affords, but that they do not strive to communicate
them to others."

Four college generations seem to have been im-
pressed by the solemnity of the warning; but in
1827 the Register was founded; its early demise
offered little encouragement to the sanguine souls
who three years later started the Collegian. Al-
though Holmes contributed several excellent pieces
to this publication, among them "The Height of
the Ridiculous," it ran for only six numbers. Un-
daunted by the unsuccessful outcome of these ex-
periments, some members of the class of 1836
brought out a periodical which they called Harvard-
tana. Lowell was one of the editors and helped to
keep it alive for three years. The Harvard Magazine^
set afloat in 1854, held its head above water till
1864 and then was submerged.

210

The Lunpoon Office and the "Gold Cout"

UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES

In May, 1866, the Advocate^ which still maintains
a prosperous existence, was founded. It is issued
fortnightly and contains fiction, poetry, essays,
and comment on matters of current undergraduate
interest. The editors formerly held their meetings
in one another's rooms, but now resort to the well
equipped sanctum in the Harvard Union — the
great university club. A daily paper, the Magenta^
now the Crimson^ was started in 1873. The Crim-
son is a profitable and useful enterprise and makes
a good training school for young men who wish to
take up newspaper work. Like the Advocate and
the Monthly^ it has offices in the Union. The Lam-
poon^ a humorous illustrated paper, was founded in
1876, and in 1885, the Monthly ^ more ambitious in
its literary efforts than the Advocate^ had its birth.
The Lampoon has a house of its own, of an indi-
vidual and admirably suggestive style of archi-
tecture, in Mount Auburn Street. Although the
interests of these various publications do not often
clash, rivalry and jealousy are occasionally revealed
in good-humored gibes and acrimonious sneers.
The Advocate regards the Monthly as owlish, the
Monthly looks upon the Advocate as trivial, the
Crimson considers both of them dilettante, and the
Lampoon chastens all three. The holiday on which

211

THE STORY OF HARVARD

the Lampoon issued what purported to be the Crim^
son and proved to be a satirical burlesque of it is
historic. Whatever venom charges the pens of the
scribes, their personal relations are amicable enough;
and the annual baseball game between the Crimson
and the Lampoon is, for the members of the two
boards, one of the pleasing and humorous events
of the year.

Nowadays the criticism is often made that too
many of the young men of our colleges have pre-
maturely ensconced themselves in the club window
to look out upon life. Certainly at Harvard a num-
ber of clubs assist their members to acquire sophis-
tication and to partake of non-academic luxuries.
The pursuit of these two aims would no doubt
interest a certain proportion of young men even if
there were no clubs to facilitate it; without these
institutions, which do in varying degrees provide
an education in worldliness, the acquisition of
knowledge and the enjoyment of luxury would be
rather more perilous than it now is. At Harvard the
man without a club who embarks upon the educa-
tion of his senses is more likely to become demoralized
and cheapened than the kindred spirit with club
restraints and club opportunities to guide him.

It is frequently and somewhat stridently objected

212

. UNDERGRADUATE ACTIMTIES

that the club life at Harvard does not promote a
spirit of democracy. Does club life promote such
a spirit anywhere? To live in a dormitory de luxe^
with a private bath of your own and a swimming
tank in the basement, when the fellow that checks
off your attendance at recitations dwells in a dim
attic and bathes at the gymnasium, does not promote
a spirit of democracy. At Harvard, as elsewhere in
America, the rich have grown richer, and the poor
are still the poor.

Clubland lies along the Gold Coast. In and
about this part of Mount Auburn Street are clus-
tered the expensive dormitories occupied by the
rich, and the expensive little clubs maintained by the
socially fortunate among the rich.

A hundred years ago it was the custom for two
youths to bear from the college commons to the
weekly meeting and feast of the Hasty Pudding
Qub a great iron kettle filled with hasty pudding.
Nowadays a club dinner is a more formal matter
— or begins as such. It is an affair of evening dress,
wines, liqueurs, and good cigars. The Hasty Pudding
Qub still serves hasty pudding at its occasional
gatherings, — a rather barren effort to maintain the
traditions of those early and simpler days. But the
Pudding has suffered a decline in prestige with the

213

THE STORY OF HARVARD

increase in number and in luxury of the smaller
clubs. Until about the middle of the nineteenth
century the Porcellian was the only small club de-
voted to social and convivial purposes. Then came
an era of Greek letter fraternities. The Harvard
chapters finally withdrew from the parent organi-
zations and became separate clubs. Within the
last few years other small clubs have organized and
have built themselves houses which by the standard
of the eighties are extremely luxurious.

In those days and even later the Dickey was an
organization highly regarded by certain of the under-
graduates — partly because the initiation gave a
fellow in his sophomore year an opportunity to know
and become known to a number of upper classmen,
and partly because membership in it was a badge
of social distinction. As a club the Dickey never
amounted to anything, yet sophomores were only
too delighted to be dragged from their rooms at
night, hurled down-stairs and kicked through the
streets at the head of a chanting procession — this
being the method of apprising them of election —
and then for the better part of a week to lead a life
of servitude, bound to obey every behest of any one
who was a Dickey member. The pranks that they
were compelled to play in public and in private were

214

UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES

sometimes ingenious and amusing, sometimes stupid
and vulgar. The initiation had features of brutality
which have been partially reformed. On the whole,
the Dickey is a senseless organization, and may be
expected before many years to see its own uselessness
and act upon it creditably in the manner of two fresh-
man clubs, the Fencing and the Polo, which, being
made aware of their pernicious nature and influence,
disbanded. The Dickey is a society within a club,
being composed of a certain proportion of the mem-
bership of the Institute of 1770 — that organization
formed originally to encourage and develop public
speaking. The Institute has a club-house — not one
of the luxurious and modern type — and clings to
a more or less languishing existence.

The Hasty Pudding has a club-house, considered
very magnificent when built, some thirty years ago,
but regarded now as offering too little to its mem-
bers to be attractive. Its theatre and its custom
of giving every year a musical farce, written and
acted by members, keep it alive; but as a place
of resort it is little used. That function has been
usurped by the numerous smaller clubs, which are
all prosperous and which have a membership each of
from thirty to forty, drawn from the three upper
classes. These clubs, of which the Porcellian and

215

THE STORY OF HARVARD

the A. D. are the most prominent, have handsome,
well-equipped houses and good libraries; some of
them have squash or handball courts. Living in a
Mount Auburn Street dormitory, eating at a Mount
Auburn Street club, and going to the theatre with
a Mount Auburn Street crowd, the inhabitants of
the Gold Coast aroused considerable feeling by their
exclusiveness; some of them deprecated the cleavage
which was becoming more and more pronounced be-
tween them and the rest of Harvard College. A
movement which had for its slogan, " Back to the
Yard!" was started, and with some success, —
especially as the Corporation renovated the old
dormitories and made them more attractive. Now
men who pass their sophomore and junior years in
Claverly welcome an opportunity to live during their
senior year in Holworthy, the most desirable of all
the dormitories.

Between the clubbed and the unclubbed, inti-
macies seldom are formed. Men may sit side by
side in certain lecture courses, they may meet on the
athletic field, and from such occasional proximity
may come to cherish a very friendly feeling for
each other; but intimate friendship results only from
intimate association. This the club man naturally
has with his club mates; and the outsider has it

216

UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES

with other outsiders. Of recent years there has
been an increase in the number of clubs; and there
are now a good many that are conducted on a more
modest scale and so offer membership to a less opu-
lent class than do those identified with the Mount
Auburn Street region.

The Harvard Union, made possible by the gift of
Mr. Henry Lee Higginson, who was the donor
also of Soldier's Field, is a club which every member
of the university may join; the annual dues are ten
dollars. It has a very large and fine building, with
a magnificent hall, comfortable reading-rooms, pleas-
ant dining-rooms, and a good library. But its very
size and comprehensiveness prevent it from fulfill-
ing one of the most important functions of a club,
the promotion of friendships. It serves many useful
purposes, it makes a convenient rallying-point, but
there is in it no club feeling or life. It will doubtless
be otherwise with that adjunct to it opened in 191 2
— the Varsity Club. For membership in this all
who have won their letter H in any of the major
sports are eligible; the dues are made so low that
the poor man may feel able to meet them, and the
club itself is attractive enough in its appointments
to induce and merit the interest of the athlete
who may be already a member of the Porcellian or

217

THE STORY OF HARVARD

the A. D. If it fulfils expectations, the Varsity Club
will develop and foster comradeships begun on the
field, and will be for some men a broadening and
for others a civilizing influence.

The athletic rivalry with Yale, which has become
one of the moving influences of Harvard undergrad-
uate life, had its origin in the first Harvard- Yale
boat race in 1852. In each college, rowing had for
some years been a popular sport, and there were
clubs that owned boats and held races. In the
summer of 1852 the Undine Boat Club of Yale
challenged the Oneida Boat Club of Harvard, and
the challenge was promptly accepted. The adver-
tising agent of the Boston, Concord, and Montreal
Railroad took charge of the affair; the oarsmen were
given free transportation to Centre Harbor on
Lake Winnipesaukee, in New Hampshire, and were
entertained during their stay at the expense of the
road, which " featured " their contest. As a result
of the advertising man's efforts, on August 3, the
day of the race, a considerable number of specta-
tors assembled on the shore. Harvard was rep-
resented by one eight-oared boat, the Oneida^ Yale
by two, the Undine and the ShazvmuL The course
was about a mile and a half in length. The Oneida
won by two lengths over the Shawmutj and her crew

218

■I^t/^^^^^'d"

-S-^^

The Weld Boat House

UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES

received as a prize a pair of black walnut oars orna-
mented with silver. The Harvard oarsmen had
rowed only a few times before the race, " for fear
of blistering their hands."

This patriarchal Harvard craft had been built
for a race between two clubs of Boston mechanics
and had been purchased in 1844 by some members
of the class of '46. It was about three and a half
feet wide, and thirty-seven feet long, and was rowed
on the gunwale. Outriggers were used in the next
race with Yale, in 1855; the first six-oared shell was
made for Harvard in 1857.

In the race in 1855, rowed on the Connecticut at
Springfield and won by Harvard, Alexander Agassiz,
the bow oar, steered the boat. The Harvard crews
of those days were not composed exclusively of un-
dergraduates. Thus Agassiz, graduating in 1855,
rowed on the crews of 1856, 1857, and 1858; and
the future President Eliot, though he was of the
class of '53, rowed on the crew of 1858. But be-
tween the years 1855 ^^^ ^^59 there were no races
with Yale; the Harvard crews took part instead in
various local regattas, some of them apparently of a
semi-professional character; for instance. President
Eliot's crew won two money prizes, seventy-five
dollars in one race, and a hundred dollars in another.

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THE STORY OF HARVARD

In 1859 Harvard and Yale met again on the water,
this time in a two days' regatta on Lake Quinsiga-
mond, at Worcester. Harvard won the first day,
Yale won the second; " at this, the first defeat that
Harvard had endured, the crew threw their turbans
into the lake in disgust, but permitted no detraction
from the Yale's success." Harvard won the race
of i860; then, during four years of war time, there
was no race. In 1864, however. Harvard and Yale
resumed aquatic relations, again at Lake Quinsiga-
mond, and continued them there annually until
1870, Harvard winning five of the seven races.
Yale at last became dissatisfied with the conditions
and refused to row any longer at Lake Quinsigamond.
In 1871, chiefly as the result of a misunderstanding,
there was no race between the two colleges. In-
stead Harvard took part in a three-cornered race
at Springfield with Brown and Massachusetts
Agricultural College. The Agricultural crew won,
Harvard coming in second; thenceforth until 1877
Harvard and Yale were rather unsuccessful partici-
pants in large intercollegiate regattas, held now at
Springfield, now at Saratoga; Yale won only one of
the races, and Harvard did not win at all.

After the race of 1875 at Saratoga, in which thir-
teen crews were entered, Yale withdrew from the in-

220

UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES

tercollegiate association and challenged Harvard the
next year to a race. Harvard accepted the challenge;
and on June 20, 1876, the first eight-oared race be-
tween the two colleges was rowed at Springfield,
Yale winning easily, owing to an accident in the Har-
vard boat. About a month later the Harvard crew —
diminished necessarily to six — entered the intercolle-
giate six-oared regatta and finished second to Cornell.
This was for many years the last appearance of a
Harvard crew in an intercollegiate regatta. The
dual contests with Yale henceforth absorbed the
interest of Harvard's best oarsmen, except in the
interval between 1895 ^^^ 1899. Then Harvard
took part in regattas on the Poughkeepsie, with no
conspicuous success. After 1885, for about twenty
years. Harvard victories were few and far between;
but in 1906 a turn for the better took place, and
since that time Harvard has been conspicuously suc-
cessful on the water. Between the years 1852 and
1912 inclusive Harvard and Yale rowed forty-six dual
races, and each won twenty-three.

But boating at Harvard does not concern itself
merely with the competition of men who want to row
against Yale. The two boat clubs, the Weld and
the Newell, have many members, by no means so
hopeful of their prowess. Fellows row on club crews

221

THE STORY OF HARVARD

or class crews or dormitory crews; they go out in
single shells or wherries; every bright spring after-
noon, scattered about on the river from the Arsenal
to the lower end of the Basin, there are dozens of
little craft with bare-backed oarsmen, gliding rhyth-
mically or balancing at rest.

Varsity football at Harvard is twenty years
younger than varsity rowing. In 1873 ^he Uni-
versity Football Association was organized; there
were fifteen men on a team; the game was one of
kicking almost exclusively. The modern game may
be said to date from 1880, when the Rugby rules
were adopted. Harvard, Princeton, and Yale
formed a triangular league; in 1889 Harvard with-
drew to enter into a dual league with Yale. Since
that time, with the exception of two years when
athletic relations with Yale, were broken off, the
" Yale game " has been the greatest annual sporting
event. In the late eighties and early nineties it was
played at Springfield. The last Springfield game
was in 1894 and is memorable as the roughest en-
counter in the history of the two universities; it
was the cause of the subsequent rupture between
them. For two years Harvard and Yale were in the
position of playmates who do not speak; then nego-
tiations led to a resumption of friendlier feelings

222

UNDERGRADUATE ACTIMTIES

and athletic competition. There are now no more
cleanly played games anywhere than those between
Harvard and Yale.

Baseball receives a less important measure of
undergraduate esteem than either football or rowing,
presumably because those who devote themselves
to it undergo less real hardship of training than the
followers of the other sports. The class of '66 had
the first baseball nine of which there is any record
at Harvard, and played a game with the Brown
sophomores in 1863. Harvard won, and for a num-
ber of years the Harvard nines were almost invariably
successful in their important contests. It was a
Harvard captain, Mr. F. W. Thayer, of the class
of '78, who invented the catcher's mask and by that
invention revolutionized the game. As in football
and in rowing, although the contests with Yale
furnish the climax of the baseball season, there are
minor rivalries that give inferior degrees of skill
and an equal love for the sport the opportunity to
express themselves. The class games excite the
players to an intensity of effort and provoke the
spectators to a ferocity of partisanship. Tin horns,
whistles, and even firearms are employed by some
of the more ardent loyalists of a class to shatter
the nerves of the opposing team; the first baseman

223

THE STORY OF HARVARD

or the third baseman is a mark for the jeers and
taunts of the hostile horde encamped along his
base-line; every batter is admonished derisively
as he stands at the plate. After the game the tri-
umphant class dances a serpentine about the field,
gathers at the steps of the Locker Building, and
cheers its heroes. There are not many livelier
spectacles of an informal kind at Harvard than that
afforded by an inter-class baseball game.

Track athletics are the fourth " major " sport.
The first intercollegiate meet in which Harvard took
part was in 1876. Now her athletes of the track
train for two great occasions, — the intercollegiate
meet and the dual meet with Yale. Many of them
begin to prepare themselves in the gymnasium in the
early winter; various indoor meets supply a stim-
ulus for the drudgery.

Lacrosse, soccer, and of course tennis have their
enthusiasts; tennis is probably the most popular
of all the sports; class tournaments and the college
championship tournament bring out every year a
great number of entries.

It is a gay and pleasant sight that you may sec
when you stroll along the upper promenade of the
Stadium on a sunny afternoon in May. Below in the
oval the bare-armed, bare-legged athletes in their

224

"^he Stadiu

UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES

shining white are sprinting on the track, jumping,
pole-vaulting; beyond on the other side, the lacrosse
team is practising and perhaps some candidates for
the next autumn's football eleven are being tried
out in a scrimmage or at punting. On the baseball
field near by the varsity nine is playing a practice
game with the second, and farther off you see class
nines and scrub nines occupying other diamonds
and hear the adjurations of the coaches; with ad-
miring eyes you follow the quick and graceful move-
ments of the players; pleasant to your ear is the
satisfying crack of bat against ball, the comfortable
thud of ball into mitt. But your eyes rove after
a while beyond the ball games; the tennis courts,
still more distant, are alive with active figures, and
out on the silvery river which enfolds the level
acres there are boats gliding, oars flashing, brown
backs bending. Surveying all this from your lofty
point of vantage, you may be willing to assert that
nowhere else in America is there to be observed such
a panorama of athletics.

But the most significant feature of this scene is
not the vast Stadium, nor the playing-fields, nor even
the multitudinous, gay-hearted, light-limbed activity
of vigorous youth; it is the slender marble shaft
that rises inside the gate and bears this inscription:

225

THE STORY OF HARVARD

TO THE HAPPY

MEMORY OF

JAMES SAVAGE

CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL

EDWARD BARRY DALTON

STEPHEN GEORGE PERKINS

JAMES JACKSON LOWELL

ROBERT GOULD SHAW

FRIENDS, COMRADES, KINSMEN,

WHO DIED FOR THEIR COUNTRY,

THIS FIELD IS DEDICATED BY

HENRY LEE HIGGINSON

And beneath this inscription is the stanza:

" THOUGH LOVE REPINE AND REASON CHAFE,
THE?LE CAME A VOICE WITHOUT REPLY,

* 'tis man's PERDITION TO BE SAFE

WHEN FOR THE TRUTH HE OUGHT TO DIE.' "

Every youth in going to his play and in returning
from it must pass that monitory monument. The
crowds of strangers stream by it on Class Day and
on the afternoons of the great games. The under-
graduates gather round it to cheer their victorious
team. About it flow the currents of the most
eager expectancy and the keenest excitement —
and in the midst of these, by the emphasis of
contrast, some heart is receiving a new spiritual
impulse; the six ennobled names and the message of
Emerson are doing Harvard's work.

226

CHAPTER XIV

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

TWO days before the opening of college they
arrive, the youths who are starting out upon
their first great adventure. They are to be recog-
nized at sight as they stroll about the college grounds,
with their young, downy, more or less engaging faces
and their new clothes and their somewhat self-con-
scious air. They saunter composedly, but there is
furtive inquiry in their glance; they eye one another
with a curiosity and an interest which they do not
in these initial days bestow on any other human
beings.

Classmates! It is their magic word, and for a
little while it embraces the world of their thoughts.
Harvard College with its traditions and its triumphs
is a theme that has excited them for months past
and that will grow dear and dearer to them in the
months and years to come, but suddenly its sig-
nificance and importance are diminished or elimi-
nated. The faculty have never been much in their

227

THE STORY OF HARVARD

minds; and will never be less so than in these open-
ing days. Sophomores, juniors, seniors appear as
vague phantoms brushing across the background
of their perspective and bearing no vital relation
to the stirring actions which fill the foreground. Al-
though these stirring actions are themselves vague
and misty of definition, there is hardly a freshman
but believes implicitly that he has been liberated
upon a tumult of excitement and is exultant and
palpitating at the prospect. Whatever the drama,
these classmates, now unknown to him, are to be
his fellow actors; and so he peers at them and
fixes their lineaments in his memory and learns
their names and wonders with which his lot will
be most intimately cast.

While waiting confidently for the vortex of " col-
lege life ^' to open up and suck him in, the freshman
busies himself with furnishing his rooms — unless
his mother has already attended to this for him.
He aflixes a couple of Harvard flags to the wall,
distributes sofa pillows bearing class numerals
or the letter H upon his window-seat, and arranges
pipes and tobacco jar upon his table. His furniture
is likely to be of the Mission style, and — as he
finds out before long — less comfortable than it
looks. His library is notably meagre, but in the

228

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

course of the year begins to manifest itself in ex-
pensively bound initial volumes of classic authors,
contracted for upon the instalment plan — an in-
discretion which for the next two years the purchaser
never ceases to deplore.

Having made his room as typical a college room
as he can and being pleased with the result, the
freshman desires to display it to a classmate. It
is probable that he does not come to college quite
unfriended and alone; if he does not, he is very
soon dispensing hospitality, passing cigarettes and
pipe tobacco round a circle of fellows whom he
is already enthusiastically pronouncing " perfectly
bully.** If he happens to come to college without
knowing any one, he probably, within a day or so,
will have struck up an acquaintance with some youth
who has seemed as lonely as himself and whose face
appeals to him as attractive. With one or two friends
of the right sort to exchange confidences with, the
freshman is prepared for his career in the college
world.

The question is, of course, what are the right sort.
Generally speaking, they ought to be those who are
of one's own sort. Yet this classification is some-
what unsatisfactory and inadequate. It might be
an excellent thing for the young man with the auto-

229

THE STORY OF HARVARD

mobile to choose for one of his intimate friends the
youth who has to work his way through college; it
might conceivably be an excellent thing for the
indigent youth also. The unfortunate fact is,
however, that in the early stages of a college career
friendships are determined, more or less of necessity,
by a man's possessions and disbursements. The
freshman who can command luxury and expensive
amusements requires companionship to enjoy them.
Many wealthy parents send their boys to college
with what they regard as a moderate allowance and
with an earnest wish that their sons lead a simple
and democratic life. Yet at the same time they
wish their boys to be well dressed, well housed, well
fed, to have all the comforts of home and not to be
placed in a position of social inferiority. The com-
forts and the amusements which the freshman of
easy circumstances requires are various and costly;
his surroundings remove him for a time from the
possibility of intimate contact with the boy of scanty
resources. In the beginning of college life, friend-
ships are formed in the pursuit of amusement rather
than in the pursuit of work. The theatre, the club
table, the expensive suite of rooms, frequent auto-
mobiles and taxicabs, occasional little dinners with
wine — indulgence in these luxuries certainly assists

230

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

the freshman to acquire acquaintances and to en-
large the circle of his friends, yet at the same time
It limits him to the companionship of the luxurious.

Having acquired a satisfactory number of con-
genial friends and acquaintances, having established
a reputation for liberality with the head waiters at
one or two Boston hotels, having occupied a box with
a few choice spirits at a musical show, and having
sat up till an early morning hour at a poker game —
having in general demonstrated that he is a free
man, under no galling supervision, the freshman, if
he is of the right sort, experiences a sense of dis-
satisfaction and discontent. These activities have
all been new and exciting in their way, but they have
not particularly identified him with college life or
with the interests of his class. If the freshman is
of the right sort, he soon wants to count for some-
thing and to be of some use in the class and the
college. The desire to be of service is probably less
moving than the desire to make a name for himself;
but the two work hand in hand to spur him on to
some kind of extra effort.

Athletics, of course, offer the great opportunity.
If a boy has any skill or strength, he wants to make
it tell. With the opening of the college year, there
is set in motion a busy and inviting panorama of

231

THE STORY OF HARVARD

games and sports. A tennis tournament is soon
under way; the fall track games are scheduled
and candidates are summoned to practice; in a week
or two the football players are arming themselves
with their head-pieces and nose-guards. Any one
may be a candidate for anything — and if a fresh-
man is soon " fired from the squad," he can at least
take his place on the side-lines with the consciousness
of having made a manful attempt, of having tasted
more fully the spirit of college life, of having felt
more convincingly than before the strength and
heartiness of his classmates. To be stood rudely on
his head by Hiram Higgs, the strapping farmer lad
from Oxbow Corners, may be a profitable experience
for Reginald Richmond of Groton and Fifth Avenue;
and if, in the next play, Reginald tramples upon the
pride of Oxbow Corners, Hiram also may be bene-
fited. One of the virtues of freshmen athletics
is that in the enthusiastic desire of all who are
physically fit to get into the game, a good deal
of social prejudice is rubbed off and a new basis
of judgment is formed.

Of course there is not much likelihood of a per-
manent friendship resulting from an accidental
brush on the football field; if a boy's prowess is
not sufficient to carry him through more than two

232

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

or three scrimmages, he is likely to leave the field
richer only in sentiment. The fellows who make the
team are the ones who are most likely to develop
lasting ties of affection from their athletic experi-
ences. For them the problems of the freshman
year — a part of it, at any rate — and of college
life are simplified, and the temptations minimized.
" To break training " before the season is over is
so heinous an offence in the college world that it
practically does not occur; the force of public
opinion will keep straight the athlete of the most
devious propensities. His standing in his classes
is also looked after with great care by the coach or
by some other authority; the possibility of the
faculty's laying a ban on him at the last moment
on account of neglect of studies is one that is kept
diligently before his mind. Consequently all in-
fluences contribute to give him a good start, to
fix in him habits of industry, and to develop in him
the sense of responsibility which in most of his class-
mates is of slower growth.

The freshman who is not under athletic discipline
and whose financial circumstances are easy is likely
to enjoy about one month of exhilarating liberty,
hilarity, and frivolity. He finds that he is under
no such restrictions as existed in the school at which

233

THE STORY OF HARVARD

he prepared for college. He cuts a recitation, and
nothing is said about it. He stays up — and out —
half the night, and nobody seems to care. He smokes
publicly as well as privately, and no one is scandal-
ized. In some of his courses he does not have to
prepare a daily lesson, because there are lectures
instead of recitations. He goes to class with a note-
book in which he jots down as much of the lecturer's
remarks as he deems important. These notes,
read afterwards, have a curious meaninglessness,
a disconnected and unhinged quality which gives
him a rather low opinion of the lecturer's intelligence.
A man who is so vague in his utterances can cer-
tainly not come into any very practical relation with
one's life; probably he will never show that he is
aware of one's existence. It is a comfortable feeling.
There is absolutely nothing to interfere with the
delightful occupation of making and seeing friends
— which includes seeing " shows," playing pool
and billiards, having late suppers and coming home
in early morning taxicabs. It is a beautiful world,
in which there are no penalties. There are no study
hours to be observed, there is no being kept in after
school to atone for failures.

Then one morning the lecturer in European His-
tory, who has been setting forth in a tiresome fashion

234

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

the geographical alterations occasioned by the per-»
formances of Charlemagne, concludes by remarking:
" Gentlemen," — and not yet has the freshman quite
adjusted himself to the pleasurable shock of being
addressed collectively as " Gentlemen " instead of
" Boys " — " Gentlemen, there will be an hour
examination in this subject one week from to-day."

The freshman who has been having a glorious
and untrammeled time is frightened. When he
gets to his room and begins to look over his notes and
finds how little they convey to his mind, he feels
desperate. However, there are references to reading
which may prove illuminating. He visits the li-
brary, and finds that other desperate freshmen have
forestalled him. Every book which has been pre-
scribed is now in some one's hands. Most of them
are volumes in expensive sets, and the freshman
who is ready to spend money quite freely on dinners
and taxicabs usually balks at a heavy outlay for
books of a scholastic nature which are not ornamental
in their bindings. He learns that there is another
resource open to him, and his heart soars again.

There is an experienced tutor who for years and
years has made a practice of extricating freshmen
from just such difiiculties. He supplies the applicant
with a volume of very full typewritten or printed

235

THE STORY OF HARVARD

notes transcribed from the instructor's lectures*
" Learn this date " is an adjuration found frequently
upon the pages; and " Be sure to bear in mind this
fact." But the freshman is given to understand that
the printed notes alone are too precarious a guide;
relying on them and nothing else he can hardly hope
to pass. The day before the examinations the tutor
gives a " seminar," which lasts from two to three
hours. On the walls of his room are blackboards on
which he has drawn various maps. He stands before
his class of students, who are now literally thirsting
for information, and lectures to them, slowly, clearly,
repeating and emphasizing certain points. " This
question has been, in one form or another, on seven
out of the last ten hour examinations," he will say.
" Better be prepared to answer it. Alaric and the
Goths — always in some form you will be required
to deal with Alaric and the Goths. Here are a few
simple facts about them." And so on. The fresh-
man comes forth from his three-hour session ex-
hausted, but with a number of subjects on which he
feels able to write a concise and definite paragraph.
So deftly has the tutor selected these subjects that
the next morning the freshman is gratified to see
that four out of the six questions have been pro-
vided for.

236

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

He passes the examination — not with distinction
but by a safe margin. Similar frantic exertions
secure for him what he is fond of terming a " gen-
tleman's mark " in the other hour examinations,
which are now in quick succession launched at him.
But when the returns are all in, he finds that two
or three of those whom he had come to regard as
" perfectly bully " fellows are no more. For a day
or two he bitterly denounces the instructors at
whose hands they met their fate; then his sports
and his friends and, to an increased though still
limited degree, his studies — for he has profited
a little by his experience — absorb his attention.

To the boy whose family are making sacrifices
to put him through college and who is partly de-
pendent on himself for the funds required, the fresh-
man year is a period, not of care-free sociability and
indolence, but of anxiety and lonely uncertainty.
Whether he is really worth a college education or
not is a vital question to him. He enters into com-
petition with other boys who are as determined as
he to justify the endeavor and the sacrifice. The
prizes that the college offers in the way of scholar-
ships are always less in number than the com-
petitors; the possibilities of earning money in his
leisure hours dp not make themselves known very

237

THE STORY OF HARVARD

readily to the freshman, and the necessity of striving
hard for a scholarship provides him with few leisure
hours. Yet his pride in his class is as strong as
that of one who is more free to indulge in the pur-
suits that promote such sentiment; and when the
class football games are played, the " grinds " are
as numerous and vociferous on the side-lines as
those who have habitually been spending their after-
noons in the somewhat languid occupation of en-
couraging the team. On the afternoon of the game
with the sophomores, nobody stays away. The
enthusiasm and the partisanship are as violent as
when the varsity eleven contends with the foreign
and hereditary foe. The captain or the manager
of the team appoints certain individuals to lead the
cheering; with backs to the game and zeal in their
eyes and exhortation in their waving arms, they
busy themselves deliriously. Theirs is a proud posi-
tion; many a freshman in the obedient cheering
mass wishes that he were equally distinguished.
When the game is over and the sophomores have
been defeated, there is a rush for the victorious
captain; he is transported from the field upon the
shoulders of a few fortunate ones, while all round him
presses the acclaiming multitude. At the steps of
the athletic house he and his worthy fellow athletes

238

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

are detained, and one after another is elevated to
the public view to blush and be cheered. Lucky-
freshman! Has he ever tasted, will he ever taste
again a sweeter triumph?

Excitement is not yet ready to be quenched; the
celebration must be prolonged. The ordinary food
and drink of freshmen are not for such an occasion
as this; it calls for a more festive board than that
of Memorial Hall. In congenial parties they dine
that evening at hotels and afterwards attend a
musical " show " — for which seats have been re-
served in anticipation of victory and also by way
of consolation for possible defeat. The theatre is
theirs — sometimes. It depends on the manage-
ment, the actors, and most of all, on the freshmen
themselves. If they behave with a certain amount
of decorum, show merely a somewhat excessive
enthusiasm, and are not too importunate in their
demands for encores, they will probably be gratified
by the appearance of the leading lady waving the
colors of their class and smiling upon them be-
witchingly. What a class it is that this lovely
being honors it thus! After the show, a little
supper possibly, a Welsh rabbit and a bottle of
beer; and then the freshman, never before so re-
plete and complete, takes taxicab or trolley-car

2S9

THE STORY OF HARVARD

back to his academic home and tumbles drowsily to
bed, his last thought being: " What a bully day! "
There has been a good deal heard, there always
is a good deal heard, of the dissipated life of fresh-
men. If a boy's home training has been of a sort
to make it easy for him to drift into dissipation, and
if he has inherited tendencies of that nature, he
will probably be as dissipated at college as he would
be elsewhere — not more so. The freshman — and
in this he resembles his elders — would like to be
a " good fellow " and to be known as such; but the
standards required in the attainment of this am-
bition do not call for the inordinate consumption
of rum and cigarettes or for the pursuit and enter-
tainment of chorus girls. There is probably more
harmless and innocent conviviality in any under-
graduate gathering than is to be found elsewhere
outside the walls of a well conducted Old Ladies'
Home. For a time, freshmen are exhilarated by the
unaccustomed sensation of liberty, and their age
and spirits tend to make them experimental; on
the other hand, the standards which are maintained
by the influence of home training and association,
of college advisers, and of undergraduate opinion,
are such as not to warrant the widespread belief
in the perils of a college career.

240

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

And as the year goes on, the freshman acquires a
deeper interest in matters that are of importance.
He begins perhaps to feel that he has not so far made
the most of his opportunities, that he has given too
much energy to seeking the pleasures of life, and that
he has somewhat disappointed the expectations of
those whom he would like to have always regard
him with pride as well as with affection. He feels
perhaps that he ought to be preparing himself a
little more earnestly for that still distant future
when he shall be turned out into the world to earn
his own living and make his own way. Intercourse
with his friends and with his teachers has supplied
him with more urgent ambitions and ideals. He
dislikes examinations as much as ever, but he accepts
the necessity of studying for them and of not depend--
ing on a tutor at the last moment. He finds that
what is winning the deepest respect among his class-
mates is character — yes, even more than good-
fellowship. He learns by observation and experi-
ence; and by the time the end of the year approaches,
his smile is just as cheerful, but his backbone is less
pliant than when he entered college.

Of course it is not often that the boy matures into
the man in his freshman year. In no respect prob-
ably does he show his immaturity more than in his

241

THE STORY OF HARVARD

desire to be known and esteemed by prominent per-
sons of his own or of other classes. He is pleased
if they think well enough of him to call him by his
first name. Sometimes it goes to his head if he be-
lieves that they are considering him as a possible
candidate for one of their clubs. It is not strange
that with a knowledge of such institutions and an
acquaintance with their members, the freshman
spends some time wondering if he is in line of elec-
tion. The assiduous cultivation of the popular and
socially successful is an odious trait; the freshman
who is guilty of it may advance himself temporarily,
but an undesirable reputation will cling to him
throughout the rest of his college career. Some
clubs have a reprehensible practise of pursuing and
endeavoring to pledge freshmen who are prominent
and promising, even though election cannot take
place until the sophomore year. Not many fresh-
men are toadies, but the great majority of them
are not indifferent to the charn^s of social prestige
and success. And in certain circles the discussion
why A made such and such a club is apt to be more
interesting and pithy than the comments on B's
making such and such a team. Discussion of this
sort is one of the least wholesome of undergraduate
occupations.

242

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

Fortunate is the boy who by the end of his fresh-
man year has begun to find himself — who has ac-
quired a sound interest in some subject and has
provided himself with a definite aim. Most men are
likely to look back on their freshman year with
regret, as a year of waste, a year barren of results;
but often it has been the year in which some happy
influence has enabled them to feel and follow their
own best qualifications and powers, and so to dedi-
cate themselves to a life of usefulness.

Let us glance at one of our freshmen four years
later, when he is leaving Harvard. He has nnished
his last examination, and he has a few days with
nothing to do except loaf and make half-hearted
preparations for departure. He feels wistful and
eager, — clinging to the passing minute, yet rest-
less while it passes. He looks with particular wist-
fulness at those friends of his who are returning to
the Law School, or whose occupation will keep them
in Boston; he is going out to Seattle, where his father,
who has been profitably developing real estate,
proposes to enlist his son's abilities towards the
further improvement and building up of that me-
tropolis. And because his destination is so romanti-
cally distant and his destiny so bright, the Easterners
whose lot excites his wistfulness look on him with

243

THE STORY OF HARVARD

envious eyes. He feels that they will go on indefi-
nitely enjoying the sweets of college life, — seeing
their friends, dining with one another, going to Yale
games, — but he — he may get back to it all, if
he's lucky, for a few days about once every five
years. And they think that he is the fellow who is
going to have adventures.

He has not distinguished himself in college,
either in athletics or in scholarship; he has been one
of the " average " men. Every year he has tried
for his class eleven in the autumn and for his class
nine in the spring — never with success. He has
spent a fair amount of time on his books and so has
escaped difficulties with the " office," but his marks
have not been high. He has some very warm friends
and a number of pleasant acquaintances, for he has
always been a cheerful, honest, laughing soul. It
annoys him in these days, when he is with some of
his Boston classmates and hears them talking about
their plans, to feel that there is a choke in his throat.

The last Sunday comes, and in the afternoon, in
his cap and gown, he takes his place in the procession
that files into Appleton Chapel to hear the Bacca-
laureate Sermon. He has been in Appleton Chapel
only five times before; once to morning prayers,
to see what they were like, once to the funeral of an

244

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

old professor under whom he had sat and whose
death had moved him strangely, once on a Sunday
evening to hear a celebrated preacher, and on two
occasions to morning prayers because of a vague
feeling that the atmosphere might do him good. On
this Sunday afternoon the clergyman preaches from
the text — " Go not forth hastily to strive, lest
thou know not what to do in the end thereof; ''
the senior means to listen attentively, but his
thoughts wander with his eyes from face to face.
And when he is outside the walls of the chapel, it
comes over him with rather a pang that he has got
nothing whatever from his one and only Bacca-
laureate Sermon.
♦

Tuesday is Class Day. After breakfast he goes
in to Boston to the Copley-Plaza, where his father
and mother and sister are stopping. He thanks
heaven that his sister is really not bad-looking. He
takes the family out to Cambridge in a taxicab,
shows them round the Yard, and has two or three
fellows at his rooms to meet them. Then he sends
the family over to Sanders Theatre, and putting
on cap and gown, he falls into line behind the band.
At Sanders Theatre the seniors occupy the orchestra
and first balcony; the upper balcony is filled with
their friends and relatives; innumerable are the

245

THE STORY OF HARVARD

ladies. Jones, the orator, proves equal to the oc-
casion; his speech wins great applause; yes, the
good old class did itself proud in choosing Jones
to represent it. And no wonder that Jones is going
to study law. Now for Robinson, a literary type of
grind, who has been moistening his lips in a haras;sed .
manner during Jones's peroration. Our senior ..
fears that Robinson may break down, is immensely
relieved when he doesn't, and claps long and lustily
when he has finished. Smith's ode is effectively
sung to the air of " Fair Harvard " — to which the
ode is always written.

Then the senior rejoins his family and pilots
them to one of the big mid-day spreads; they stand
up in a great jam and eat lobster Newburg and cold
salmon, strawberries and ice-cream; he introduces
as many fellows as he can to his sister, so that she ,
may not hang heavy on his hands at Beck during
the dancing in the evening. His family go back to
the Copley-Plaza — his mother is tired and wants to
rest, and his sister wants to put on another dress for
the evening — and he drops in at his club, where there
is a thirsty gathering, a large bowl of punch, and
some one playing the piano. Presently he goes to
join his class, assembling in the Yard; they march
down to Soldier's Field at the end of the long line of

246

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

alumni, who form according to classes; the specta-
tors are all assembled in the bowl of the Stadium; the
seniors in their black gowns and mortarboards group
themselves in the center of the great semicircle and
seat themselves on the grass; the marshal calls
Brown, the Ivy Orator, to the platform. Brown's
first sentence brings a quick response of laughter; ap-
plause ripples up over the Stadium seats and sweeps
across the crowd. From that moment it is all easy
for Brown; he delivers his inconsequent humorous
remarks to an audience which, as one of the news-
papers the next day will observe, " punctuates them
with salvos of merriment." Brown's success is
particularly pleasing to our senior, who belongs to the
same club and regards him as the cleverest man in
college. But his greatest admiration is not for Brown,
but for the first marshal, who, after the Ivy Orator
has concluded, calls for the cheers — for the presi-
dent, for certain professors, for the class; the first
marshal is a fellow who has greater qualities than
wit, humor, cleverness; he is the man of character
and personality, the object of more hero-worship
than anybody else in the class. " How I wish that
I had his future! " thinks our senior — and perhaps
a dozen others have the same thought, submissive
to that flaming leadership. Yet they none of them

247

THE STORY OF HARVARD

know what that future is to be. Youth is humble
before its heroes.

An old graduate springs up and leads the loudest
and wildest of all the cheers, and then suddenly
the air is filled with flying streamers, bright-colored,
shining in the sunlight, weaving back and forth be-
tween the throng on the ground and the throng in
the seats above. Confetti unroll their gleaming
ribbons in graceful arcs, bombs stuffed with bright
tissue paper scraps burst on ladies' hats or shower
their contents from aloft, there is screaming and
laughter and a frenzied, harmless battle. During
it the seniors march out, passing close under the
tiers of seats and exchanging missiles with the nearest
spectators.

Our senior secures his family and escorts them to
the Beck spread; there tables are placed on the
lawn; people seat themselves and eat more lobster
Newburg and cold salmon, strawberries and ice-
cream; Chinese lanterns are strung above; a
band plays in the pavilion, and a great crowd tries
to dance on a very rough floor. The sister changes
partners with gratifying frequency, but at last gets
into the doldrums, or so her brother anxiously
fancies; he rescues her and they stroll over to the
Yard. There they find another illumination from

248

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

Chinese lanterns, only more extensive, with great
numbers of people sitting and standing and walking
about, while in front of University a band plays and
an electric fountain leaps and splashes. The Glee
Club sings on the steps of Sever. Late in the evening
the tired family return to Boston, but our senior,
who is proud of his reputation as a night-owl, repairs
again to his club; the punch-bowl has been refilled
and some good fellows are sitting round it agreeing
that Class Day is a great day for the girls but a
devil of a bore for a man.

The next morning our senior is busy dismantling
his room, packing away his things. In the afternoon
he marches with his class again to Soldier's Field,
this time to the Harvard-Yale baseball game, which
he views from the " cheering section."

There is a big dinner at the club that night where
old graduates shake him by the hand and wish
him well, and he and his friends drink to one another's
success. And afterwards he visits different fellows
in their rooms, sits on their window-seats in the cool
night air, and shares their silences. Some of them
give him their photographs, and ask him for his,
and that touches and pleases him. It is late when
he gets back to his own room; the bared walls and
the swathed furniture and the half-filled trunks

249

THE STORY OF HARVARD

enforce upon him the imminence of his departure.
Poignantly he realizes that this is the last night he
will ever pass in these rooms, that an important
chapter in his life is closed. And he looks back and
thinks how little he has made of his splendid oppor-
tunity, and wishes with a sincere and humble heart
that he might have those four years over again.

He wakes to the morning of Commencement.
On his way through the yard to join the academic
procession, he walks slowly, trying to fix the appear-
ance of everything in mind, the gray squirrel frisk-
ing on the trampled grass, the sadly lopped elms,
the young saplings which may have grown beyond
his recognition when he next revisits Cambridge.
Fellows are trying to be gay and cheerful, but every-
where there is an undertone of melancholy.

The black-gowned procession starts for Sanders
Theatre. Two hours later the senior comes forth,
a senior no longer, a graduate, a Bachelor of Arts,
carrying his roll of parchment tied with crimson
ribbon. He has heard the Latin Valedictory and
the Commencement oratory, he has witnessed the
conferring of the honorary degrees, and he has joined
in the applause for each distinguished guest who
has risen and stood during the president's measured
words of tribute. The young Bachelor of Arts, start-

250

FRESHMAN AND SENIOR

ing out to make for himself a career of service and
achievement, knows that he will never receive such
a distinction at his Alma Mater's hands, but hopes
with a sober heart that his future may be at least
more worthy of her than his past.

THE END,

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251

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INDEX

A. D. Club, 216, 218
Abbott, Edward Gardner, 189
Abbott, Henry Livermore, 189
Adams, John Quincy, 105
Adams, Sajnuel, 76, 79
Advocate, The Harvard, 211
Agassiz, Alexander, 219
Allen, Thomas, 11
AUston, Washington, 100, loi
Andrew, John A., 164, 191
Andros, Edward, 36
Angier, Charles, 99
Ap thorp House, 87

Barber, Jonathan, 134, 135
Barnard, Tobias, 23
Bartlett, William Francis, 196
Bellingham, Samuel, 23
Bernard, Francis, 77, 79
Bowditch, Nathaniel, 122
Bowdoin, James, 96
Boylston Hall, i
Brewster, Nathaniel, 23
Briscoe, Nathaniel, 17, 18
Brown, Charles Brooks, 184-187
Bulkley, John, 23, 28
Burgoyne, John, 85, 86, 87

Channing, William Ellery,

loi, 102, 103, 104
Chauncy, Charles, 10, 29-33

100,

Child, Francis James, 200
Choate, Joseph H., 153
Class Day, 143, 226, 245
Coiman, Benjamin, 50, 51, 54
Commemoration Day, 195
Commencement, 27, 47, 48, 55, 60,

77, 78, 87, 103, 141, 142, 250
Commons, 68, 69, 70, 75, 76, 118,

119, 138, 139, 203
Creighton, Mandell, 207
Crimson, The Harvard, 211, 212
Crowninshield, Caspar, 151

Dal ton, Edward Barry, 226

Dane Hall, 128

" Dickey," The, 214, 215

Divinity Hall, no, 148

Downing, George, 23, 24, 25, 28

Dudley, Joseph, 36, 47

Dudley, Paul, 47

Dudl?y, Thomas, 14

Dunbar, Charles Franklin, 200

Dunster, Henry, 10, 19-22, 29, 30

Dwight, Wilder, 169-173

Eaton, Nathaniel, 17-19

Eliot, Andrew, 80

Eliot, Charles William, 197, 199,

200, 201, 202, 209, 219
Elletson, John, 10
Emerson, R. W., X15, 226

253

INDEX

Everett, Edward, no, 127, 146,
153-156, 159, 164, 210

Felton, Cornelius C, 159, 164

Gilman, Samuel, 145, 210
Goodwin, William Watson, 200
Gore, Christopher, 4
Gore Hall, 4
Grays Hall, i, 16
Greenwood, Isaac, 58, 59

Hancock, John, 79, 81, 89-94, 98
Harvard, John, 10, 15, 16, 65, 204,

207
Harvard, Robert, 10
Harvard Crimson, The, 211, 212
Harvard Hall, First, 32, 62-65
Harvard Hall, Second, 66, 83, 145
Harvard Magazine, The, 210
Harvard Union, The, 217
Harvard Washington Corps, 109,

204
Harvardiana, 210
Hasty Pudding Club, 102, 213,

215
Higginson, Henry L., 182, 217

Hill, Adams Sherman, 200
Hill, Thomas, 159, 161
Hoar, Leonard, 33-35
Holdcn Chap)el, 62, 78, 98
Hollis, Thomas, 49-53 » 59, 65, 80
Hollis Hall, 2, 62, 66, 67, 99, no,

122
Holmes, John, 99, 1 23
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 127, 210
Holmes Field, 6, 7, 205
Holworthy, Sir Matthew, 106

Hoi worthy Hall, 2, 6, 105, 106,

109, 133, 164, 216
Holyoke, Edward, 58, 62, 71, 77,

94
Hubbard, William, 23

Hughes, Thomas, 194

Hutchinson, Thomas, 79, 81

Indian College, The, 31

Jackson, Andrew, 131
James, William, 200
Jarvis Field, 7

Kirkland, John Thornton, 107-

iio, 116, 125, 127, 128
Kossuth, Louis, 158

Lafayette, Marquis de, 127
Lampoon, The Harx'ard, 211, 212
Lane, George Martin, 200
Langdon, Samuel, 82, 87-90
Law School, no, 200, 201
Leverett, John, 45-40, 51, 94
Lincoln, Abraham, 164, 184
Locke, Samuel, 78, 82
Lowell, A. Lawrence, 4, 161, 202
Lowell, Charles Russell, 173-184,

226
Ix)well, James Jackson, 177, 226
Lowell, James Russell, 107-109,

132, 135, 143, 159, 163, 164, 205,

207, 210
Lowell, John, 96
Lyceum, The, 210

Magenta, The, 211
Marti-Mercurian Band, The, 78,
109

254

INDEX

Massachusetts Hall, 46, 62, 64,

66, 94, 95» iio» 145
Mather, Cotton, 11, 20, 35, 38,

40-45, 53, 54
Mather, Increase, 36, 38-44

Mather, Samuel, 28

Med. Fac. Society, 122, 123

Medical School, 200

Memorial Hall, 203, 207, 239

Mitchell, Jonathan, 28

Monthly, The Harvard, 211

Motley, John Lothrop, 121, 164

Newell Boat Club, 221
Norton, Charies Eliot, 200, 207

Oakcs, Urian, 35

Otis, Harrison Gray, 122

Otis, James, 79

Pa*rkman, Francis, 147, 149, 164
Peabody, Andrew P., 128, 131,

^SSy 13'^, 154, 156
Peabody, Everett, 166, 167, 168
Peirce, Benjamin, 49, 68, 69
Pepys, Samuel, 2^y 24
Perkins, Stephen George, 190, 226
Phi Beta Kappa, 98, 125, 155
Phillips, Wendell, 163
Phips, Sir William, 37
Pierce, John, 142
Popkin, John Snelling, 132-134
Porcellian Club, 102, 215
Prescott, William Hickling, 108,

"3, "5
Prince, Nathan, 59

Quincy, Josiah, 116, 119, 1 28-131,
142, 145, 147, i53» 206

Rebellion, The Great, 129

Rogers, John, 35

Russel, Cabot Jackson, 192, 195

Saddler, Rupert, 172, 173

Salisbury, Stephen, 117

Saltonstall, Henry, 23

Sanders Theatre, 203, 204, 245

Sargeant, Thomas, 34

Savage, James, 226

Sever Hall, 3

Sewall, Joseph, 53, 54

Sewall, Samuel, 34

Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate, 4,

200
Shaw, Robert Gould, 150, 178,

189-194, 226
Soldier's Field, 217, 246, 249
Sparks, Jared, 157-159, 164
Stadium, The, 224, 225, 247
Stiles, Ezra, 11
Storer, Ebenezer, 92, 93, 96
Story, Joseph, 74, 100-102
Stoughton Hall, First, 43, 46, 64,

66
Stoughton Hall, Second, 67, 105,

no
Stoughton, William, 38, 42, 43
Sumner, Charles, 125, 164

Thayer, F. W., 223

Ticknor, George, 112, 113, 144

University Hall, no, 141, 145

Varsity Club, 217, 218
Vincent, Strong, 187-189

255

INDEX

Wadsworth, Benjamin, 54, 55, 58,

94
Wadsworth House, 55
Ward, James, 29
Ware, Henry, 107
Washington, George, Ss, 84, 99,

154, 15s
Webber, Samuel, 105, 107

Webster, Daniel, 146

W^eld, Joseph, 29

Weld Boat Club, 221

Whitefield, George, 57
Whitney, George, 126, 127
Willard, Joseph, 95, 104, 105
Willard, Samuel, 44
Willard, Sidney, 104
Wilson, John, 18, 23
Winthrop, John, 14, 20, 29
Woodbridge, Benjamin, 22

Yale College, 11, 45, 158, 218-224
Yearwood, Richard, 11

INDEX

Wadsworth, Benjamin, 54, 55, 58,

94
Wadsworth House, 55
Ward, James, 29
Ware, Henry, 107
Washington, George, 83, 84, 99,

154, iSS
Webber, Samuel, 105, 107
Webster, Daniel, 146
Weld, Joseph, 29
Weld Boat Club, 221

Whitefield, George, 57
Whitney, George, 126, 127
Willard, Joseph, 95, 104, 105
Willard, Samuel, 44
Willard, Sidney, 104
Wilson, John, i8, 23
Winthrop, John, 14, 20, 29
Woodbridge, Benjamin, 22

Yale College, 11, 45, 158, 218-224
Yearwood, Richard, 11

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